How China Built the World’s Highest Bridge

How did China build the Huajiang Grand Canyon Bridge more than 600 metres above a river? This engineering documentary follows the construction of the suspension bridge in Guizhou—from the first crossing for workers to a load test using 96 heavy trucks. Before the bridge, the mountains shaped every journey. Roads wound around the terrain, and changing traffic routes could bring customers into a town—or take them away. A new expressway offered a more direct crossing, but first, its builders had to get across the canyon themselves. Follow the project step by step: the foundations and cable anchors, the temporary mesh walkway, the giant suspension cables, and 93 steel roadway sections weighing around 22,000 tonnes altogether. Discover how engineers changed their construction sequence, checked connections before lifting, and worked with the challenges of wind high above the river. Then comes the test: approximately 3,300 tonnes of trucks, with more than 400 sensors monitoring how the bridge responds. This is the story behind a remarkable Chinese megaproject—and the years of bridge engineering that turned a difficult crossing into a drive of about two minutes. Subscribe to Fault Atlas for engineering documentaries exploring how extraordinary bridges, tunnels and megaprojects are built, and why they matter to the people who use them. Chapters: 00:00 China’s Highest Bridge: 600 Metres Above a River 01:41 Why Huajiang Needed a New Crossing 03:43 How Workers Crossed Before the Road Existed 08:17 Lifting 22,000 Tonnes of Steel Across the Canyon 12:17 The 96-Truck Bridge Load Test 14:06 Years of Work for a Two-Minute Drive #HuajiangGrandCanyonBridge #bridgeengineering #megaprojects