One Dead After More Than 200 Cars Crash on Bridge in China

A 200-plus car-pile up on a bridge in Zhengzhou, China, caused by heavy fog left one person dead and many more injured, according to CCTV.

The bridge is a major crossing over the Yellow River and the crash involved vehicles traveling in both directions. Police eventually closed the bridge, a major thoroughfare for drivers in the city, Reuters reports:

“This is too scary. Full of people here, I don’t think we can get off the bridge,” one person can be heard saying in one video clip.

Many of the injured were trapped in their vehicles and the fire department sent 11 fire trucks and 66 fire rescue personnel to help, state media reported.

Visibility in many areas was less than 500 metres on Wednesday morning and down to 200 metres at times, the meteorological service said.

It’s amazing we don’t hear about more huge crashes like this coming out of China. For instance, this crash happened in Zhengzhou, a city of 10.4 million people while just last month in the U.S. there was a pileup in Denver involving over 100 vehicles in a city of around only 710,000 people.

China is no stranger to huge traffic events. The country is the site of some of the largest traffic jams in the world, for instance. A seven-day holiday known as Golden Week sees millions of Chinese folks traveling home or to vacation hot spots. Seeing miles-long backups on the 25 lane road leading into Beijing is not uncommon.

Insane Chinese traffic jam

Beijing drivers are used to sitting for long periods in terrible traffic, however. In 2014, the Wall Street Journal reported the average speed of a commuter vehicle in Beijing was 7.5 miles an hour. Oof.

Reports are scarce as information is slowly winding its way through the official channels in China. We will update when we know more.