Tenzin Nyidon
DHARAMSHALA, Nov. 13: The newly constructed Hongqi Bridge at the Shuangjiangkou Hydropower Station in Barkham (Ch. Ma’erkang), Aba (Ngaba) Tibetan Prefecture, in the traditional Tibetan province of Amdo suddenly collapsed on Tuesday afternoon. The construction of the 758-metre-long bridge had just been completed in January and opened to traffic just months ago.
A widely circulated video on social media platforms shows the bridge partially collapsing, releasing a huge dust plume. Officials said the bridge had been closed to traffic on Monday after detecting cracks on nearby slopes and roads. There were no reports of casualties.
According to the Tibetan American Network, an exile-based news outlet, the geological disturbances occurred shortly after a ceremony on November 9 marking the completion of the Shuangjiangkou Dam, the world’s tallest hydroelectric power dam. The 315-metre-tall dam, designed to generate 2,000 megawatts of electricity annually, reportedly submerged the old crossing along National Highway G317 when water impoundment began on May 1.
The original bridge was part of National Highway G317, one of China’s strategic arterial routes linking Sichuan Province with Tibet, intended to boost connectivity, tourism, and the transport of resources. Promotional videos from the state-owned Sichuan Road & Bridge Group celebrated the project for cutting travel times and symbolizing “modern development” in the mountainous Tibetan region.
However, the recent collapse has prompted widespread criticism from environmental and geological observers, who say it emphasises the dangers of building massive engineering projects on the Tibetan Plateau’s fragile and geologically unstable terrain. Experts have long warned that the region is prone to earthquakes, landslides, and permafrost melting, all of which can compromise large-scale infrastructure.
“This collapse is not an isolated incident—it’s a symptom of reckless development on one of the most unstable terrains on Earth,” one observer wrote on X. “The Tibetan Plateau is not designed to bear the weight of such projects. The consequences could be catastrophic.”
There have been many cruel and killer rulers and regimes in history! Attila the Hun, Timor, Adolf Hitler, the Vikings, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and Edi Amin etc. Among them all in history, the most prolific killer regime is undoubtedly Mao’s regime in China! Mao’s penchant for killing pales in comparison with all other all other killers. Mao and his regime is the most prolific killer in human history! It has killed 80 million human beings under its watch in a short span of seven decades. Tibet has fallen victim to the murderous Mao regime’s killing spree! During the great Tibetan National Uprising in March 1959 alone, Mao’s army murdered in cold blood 187,000 Tibetans who were protecting the Dalai Lama from being kidnapped by Mao’s army. They were also demanding the cessation of Chinese occupation of Tibet after Tibet was forced to sign the “17 point Treaty” with the threat of all out war against Tibet. The number of Tibetans murdered by Mao’s army on 10th March 1959 was found on documents seized by Tibetan guerrilla fighters who attacked Chinese convoys crossing from East Turkistan to Tibet in the early 1970s. During one of the raids, the guerrillas killed the Chinese driver and his colleagues and seized a trove of documents. It was in one these documents that detailed the number of killings and other information about the event. With the flight of the Dalai Lama to India, Tibet was brutally and illegally occupied by communist China. For the last seventy years, Mao’s army murdered 1.2 million Tibetans (one sixth of the Tibetan population) and enslaved the Tibetan people in the most horrific oppression the world has ever seen. Thousands languished in prisons, gulags and concentration camps on subsistence ration. Every Tibetan incarcerated were tortured, maimed and executed! They even made the family pay for the bullet that executed their loved ones! Monks such as Palden Gyatso who was shackled throughout his prison life of more than two decade admitted to being tortured with electric cattle prod inserted in his mouth while Tibetan nuns such as Ngawang Sangdol and Phuntsok Nyidon were tortured by inserting electric cattle prod in their vaginas! They were raped even though out of shame they have never talked about it openly! Phuntsok Nyidon was on 13 years old when she was arrested and imprisoned! Tibet became a killing field for Mao and his regime. While the Tibetan population was slaughtered and oppressed, Tibet’s most precious centres of learning were desecrated, vandalised, pillaged and demolished. More than 6000 holy monasteries, the repository of Tibet’s ancient and sacred culture were bulldozed! Sacred scriptures were made into bone fires and sacred relics were desecrated by using them as stepping stones to toilets. Tibet’s rich natural resources was plundered without mercy. Whole mountains were shredded and scarred by the voracious mining of Tibet’s gold reserves, timber, lithium, rare earth, uranium, copper, chromium and many other resources. Thousands of dams were built which forced thousands of Tibetans from their ancestral homes and submerged holy and historical ancient monasteries, pasture- land and agricultural land! The extraction of Tibet’s rich natural resources were all taken away for the Chinese colonisers without any benefit for the Tibetans who are the custodians of the land! IT IS THEREFORE DAY LIGHT ROBBERY! Instead, the damage that was done to the land, environment and ecosystem was born by the Tibetan people such as the great earthquake of Sichuan in 2008, the earthquake in Yushul and the earthquake in Dingri! Tibetans are the victims of Chinese unimpeded and reckless mining, dam construction and environmental vandalism that is responsible for the many earthquakes that is recurring in occupied Tibet and the recent collapsing of a bridge in Barkham. Chinese communists have no ingenuity of their own for innovation. Their education system doesn’t allow individuals to expand their knowledge and horizon but are deliberately stifled to suit their political agenda of indoctrination to be loyal to the communist party.The very basis of their education is to be loyal to the CCP and hate Japan and the west! As a result, their are few Chinese intellectuals who are open minded and objective. The so called Chinese “scholars” are in fact “party scholars”! They will parrot the party line and have no other in-put in their discourses. As it were, the CCP demands loyalty of all Chinese living abroad to spy for them and steal western technology on military, weapons, commerce and politics. The CCP is extremely corrupt from top to bottom. Therefore, whether it’s construction of dams, political appointment, armed forces and their rank and file are all corrupt. If they pay millions of yuans, they can buy high military positions. The most sought after bribe in communist Chinese circles is beautiful women! The Chinese communists love the flesh of beautiful women and it is reported that one army general had one hundred concubines while the highest office holder of the so called China Buddhist Association had fifty concubines! He got the job only for his loyalty to the party! As long as you are loyal to the CCP, you can get away with anything! Owing to such rampant corruption, illegal mining, illegal hunting and illegal human trafficking is rife in communist China! The bridges, dams and high rise buildings are all tofu dregs! They cut the corners through corruption and shoddy materials are used. As a result so many dams have collapsed, so many bridges have collapsed but the CCP never tell the world. It controls everything from floods, to protests, murder and embezzlement. No one is aloud to report anything without the permission of the local authorities! Even if they report, it is reported with minimum embarrassment for the CCP image! Whenever, they can’t control news such as the graphic collapse of the Barkham bridge, they use scape-goates to shun responsibility and accountability. In the light of the massive land slide and collapse of the recently built bridge in Barkham in occupied Tibet, how can any one in their right mind trust the building of another mega project like Dam on the Brahmaputra? It is a recipe for disaster! The Barkham bridge collapse is not an isolated case. A Chinese company built a thirty story building for the Thai Government under the former Thaksin Shinawatra Government after her visit to China. No sooner, the grand 30 story building was complete, it collapsed like a pack of cards during an earthquake in Thailand! All other nearby building were standing but the Chinese built new building crashed with a cloud of dust exactly like the Barkham Bridge! Owing to such shoddy work by the Chinese communists, THE WHOLE WORLD MUST STOP THE MEGA DAM ON THE BRAHMAPUTRA!