A bridge collapse in central China last night killed at least 22 people, with more than 40 reported missing.

The concrete bridge was still in construction over the Tuo River, in the Hunan province, when it caved in just a few weeks before being opened to cars.

An estimated 123 workers were removing steel scaffolding from the 42 metre high bridge when it fell apart.

The accident occurred in the hilly Fenghuang region, which is popular with Chinese tourists who flock to admire the scenery and ancient buildings. The area is famous for the traditional stilt houses that line the Tuo River.

The latest bridge collapse came just one day after the Chinese Ministry of Communications admitted that 6,300 bridges in the country needed to be repaired as they had been badly built, according to reports in the China Daily.

The fatal incident was less than two weeks after the collapse of a bridge in Minnesota that drew attention to aging transport infrastructure in the United States.

Most of those killed and injured were local farmers who were employed as construction workers on the bridge, but one witness said there were also houses squashed beneath the rubble.

The majority of the destroyed bridge tumbled into the river where local families, police and rescue workers were searching for the missing workers.

One witness, a local cleaner, told Associated Press that she had heard that friends living below the bridge had been killed in the collapse, she would only give her surname Wu.

“I was riding a bike with my husband and we had just passed under the bridge and were about 50 meters away when it collapsed,” she said. “There was a huge amount of dust that came up and didn’t clear for about 10 minutes.”

Zhou Qiang, the Hunan Governor, was at the scene overseeing rescue efforts that included bulldozers sifting through the rubble as well as the emergency services.

The bridge, which was 268 metres long, was due to have been opened at the end of the month.

The Fenghuang collapse is among the worst bridge failures in recent Chinese memory. On June 15, a bridge in south China’s Guangdong province collapsed when a cargo vessel rammed into it, killing nine people.

In January 1999, a pedestrian bridge across the Qi River in the Sichuan province collapsed three years after it was built. Forty people died and another 14 were injured.

After that accident a local county deputy party secretary was sentenced to death for accepting a bribe for the construction contract.

There are fears that local government corruption has led to bridges and other buildings in China not meeting adequate safety standards.

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