THE China Railway First Group Co. Ltd, which has been awarded the contract for the construction of the Amaila Falls, has refuted a Kaieteur News article which claimed that the company built the collapsed Harbin Bridge.

According to the Kaieteur News article published on Thursday last under the caption US$300m bridge in China collapsed, months later-same contractor to build Amaila Falls hydro-electric a section of the US$300M built by the China Railway First Group Co. Ltd in southern China collapsed killing three persons and injuring five, just nine months after being commissioned.
The article went further to assert that it is the same China Railway which has been awarded the lucrative US$506M to build the Amaila falls Hydro-electric project.
However, China Railway in a statement categorically stated that the collapsed ramp was not under the same contract as the Yangmingian Bridge.
According to the website www.whatsonxiamen.com/news26875 the “Xiamen-headquartered Fujian Jiaojian Group Engineer Co.,Ltd is the builder of the collapsed ramp of Yangmingtan Bridge in Northeastern China’s Harbin city, according to a report by Shanghai-based Dragon TV on Monday.”
A 100-metre section broke off early on Friday (24th Aug) when four heavy trucks drove onto the newly-constructed bridge, plunging them some 30 meters to the ground, said a CCTV news reporter at the scene. Two people were killed on the spot, a third died later, and five remain in hospital.
The eight-lane bridge, which was designed to handle up to 9,800 vehicles per hour, opened only last November after two years of construction that cost 1.9 billion yuan (US$298.8 million), China News Service reported.
The Xiamen-headquartered company said they have sent experts to join the ongoing investigation in Harbin and will comment after inspections.
Fujian Jiaojian Group Engineer Co., established in 1979, has a registered capital of 300 million yuan and had been responsible for the construction of key projects at national and provincial levels over the past years, according to the company’s website.
According to XMHouse.com, the following projects in Xiamen have also been completed by the company: BRT Line 1 (Chengyi College Station), Yanwu Bridge, Wuyuan Bridge, Yuanboyuan Project, Chenggong Avenue, Ruijing Park Phase II, and the currently ongoing Lianyue Tunnel.