Fury as cracks in marble on year-old bridge are fixed with glue

Television footage showed cracks up to 5cm wide in marble on the 50 million yuan (HK$56.7 million) Hanzhongmen Bridge. And the subcontractor's decision to use construction glue to fix the new bridge, rather than dig deeper into the cause, triggered outrage among residents in Nanjing, Jiangsu .

'Glue was used to fix cracks in a one-year-old bridge,' one internet poster wrote. 'What should be used to fix the cracks in our conscience?'

The construction company, the state-owned China Railway 15 Bureau Group Corporation, sent in workers with glue after residents noticed cracks on more than 30 marble columns of the bridge barriers, China Central Television reported.

Likening the bridge to many 'tofu' projects on the mainland, the public expressed fears not only over the cracks in the marble, but also the overall quality of the construction.

Guo Sujie, an official from the civil facility quality supervision department, said the cracks on the marble barriers were a result of subsidence, as the bridge was built on higher ground. He added that the barriers had cracked because marble shrank at a different pace than the cement and steel used in the main structure of the bridge.

'For this kind of bridge, designers are supposed to leave some space for the bridge structure to change, as a rule of thumb. The lack of such design considerations is the primary cause for the cracks to happen,' Guo said.