Southern Metropolis Daily was told Wednesday that an investigation into the safety of 172 Dongguan bridges had been conducted, among which 41 need major repair work done and 16 needed to be demolished and rebuilt.

Some have worn with age, while others were poorly constructed in the first place.

Liu Yuncai of the Dongguan City Road Management Bureau told the paper the bridges that need to be demolished and reconstructed include Henghai Bridge in Wangniudun Village and Shenshan Bridge in Dongkeng.

Another bridge in need of rebuilding is Daojiao Bridge, which was once hit with a boat and has numerous surface cracks.

Most of the bridges in need of work were built in the 1980s and 90s when standards were lower and bridges were not expected to support the same loads as now.

The repairing of the 41 bridges alone will cost a total of 300 million yuan but a figure for the total cost of the project has yet to be released.

The repair and reconstruction projects are already underway.

Obviously, extreme weather such as flooding increases the likelihood of a bridge collapse. Dongguan will be eager to avoid a repeat of the bridge collapse in Sichuan which killed 12 this year.