Advertisement
Reflections | After Baltimore bridge collapse shocks the world, a look at China’s ancient Marco Polo Bridge, known for different reasons
- The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore shows the vulnerabilities of modern bridges. In ancient China, substantial wood and stone bridges were built
- Beijing’s Marco Polo Bridge, built in the 12th century, is among the best known, not least as the place where the second Sino-Japanese war began in 1937
Reading Time:3 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
2
Many have seen the video of the 300-metre-long container ship ramming into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the US city of Baltimore, breaking it apart with astonishing ease like it was made of plywood.
Advertisement
On March 26, at around 1.30am local time, the Singapore-registered MV Dali lost power and veered into a supporting pillar of the bridge, causing the entire steel structure to collapse into the Patapsco River within seconds.
At the time of writing, city officials have recovered the bodies of two construction workers who had been on the bridge at the time of collision. Four others are presumed dead. Baltimore residents have expressed shock and sadness over the loss of life and the sudden disappearance of a city landmark.
Very early on in their history, the Chinese had mastered the technology of building bridges of considerable heft. Using wood, and then stone, they built bridges that spanned waterways and connected trunk roads.
One of the most well-known bridges in modern Chinese history is the Marco Polo Bridge, so named because the Venetian merchant, explorer and writer who visited and lived in China in the late 13th century described it, in The Travels of Marco Polo, as “a very fine stone bridge, so fine indeed, that it has very few equals in the world”.
Advertisement
Advertisement