A massive fireworks explosion cast a shadow over a festival, report Tang Yue and Xiang Mingchao in Sanmenxia, and He Na and Peng Yining in Beijing.

 

The first thing Zheng Tiancheng saw at the scene of the accident was a pale hand sticking out from the debris. Here, a wisp of black hair was visible in the rubble. There, a knee stuck out at an odd angle. Lower down in the valley, more than a dozen vehicles lay wrecked among the crushed concrete and twisted steel.

 

On Feb 1, an expressway bridge collapsed after a truck carrying fireworks exploded, and when Zheng arrived at the scene, the smell of death was overpowering.

 

"A woman had survived - she was whispering 'help me, help me' as we came closer," said the 52-year-old farmer who lives about a kilometer from the scene.

 

The woman's legs were trapped in the buckled doors of a minibus. Zheng and two other villagers levered the doors open and pulled the woman out of the wreckage.

 

"There was blood everywhere," said Zheng. "People were crawling out from the crashed cars, covered all over with blood."

 

Ten people died and 11 were injured in the accident at Sanmenxia city in central China's Henan province, according to a city spokesperson. The truck exploded as it crossed the bridge. The cause of the explosion is still not known, but the blast blew away an 80-meter-long section of the bridge, causing 25 vehicles to fall 30 meters. 

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