|
Support Online
 
Advanced Search
More Information
FAQ Categories
Payment
|
 |
Quang Ninh’s ‘Bridge of Suicide” Beautiful Bai Chay Bridge, the most modern suspension bridge in Southeast Asia, is now called the “demonic bridge” because from the day it opened in 2006, many people have chosen it as the site of their suicide.
The bridge of suicide
The Bai Chay Bridge spans a wide channel that links the Cua Luc estuary and Ha Long Bay on the main coastal road to China in Quang Ninh province. There are many tales told about the suicides that have made the bridge famous throughout Vietnam. The most popular story, one that many people believe, is that when telepath Phan Thi Bich Hang crossed the Bai Chay Bridge, she heard many lost souls crying for help to fend off devils.
Recently, the local administration organized a requiem service for the souls of people who died in the sea, attracting thousands of participants. The people burnt a lot of votive papers for the death and prayed for the salvation of wondering souls.
After this event, local people rumoured that the white paper bridge made for the souls to cross over to heaven turned black from the footsteps of pardoned souls. However, it was said, one soul didn’t across the paper bridge and that was the soul of a Japanese engineer who died while the Bai Chay bridge was being built. Some superstitious people said that because no amount of praying could persuade that soul to climb the paper bridge to heaven. It is speculated that because his soul was not salvaged, people continue to jump off the Bai Chay Bridge.
Another myth refers to two marvelous temples on the banks of Cua Luc strait. One collapsed and the local people haven’t taken good care of the other, so the deities were angry and they caught some souls.
These stories are told to account for the fact that the number of suicides at Bai Chay bridge is rising.
Tran Van Kiem, chief of the bridge’s guard force, said that from the roadway to the water below is at least 50 meters so everyone who falls from the bridge will surely die. Perhaps, Kiem said, suicide victims like the “ideal” height of the bridge. So far, only one attempted suicide is still alive, a schizophrenic who wanted to get in the record books by jumping from the Bai Chay bridge.
The guard team has recorded every suicide. Since the bridge opened for traffic in December 2006, it has averaged a suicide every two months. Kiem said his team has prevented around 50 suicides. The team has a record of all the suicides and attempted suicides, including the date, the time, the names of victims, their addresses and the reasons for suicides. Most of the fourteen dead were very young. Victims are not only local people but also those from other provinces.
However, people who live below the bridge said that they have witnessed at least 20 suicides. Only those who attempted to commit suicide during the day – before 9pm -- were prevented. The reasons for suicides vary, but the most popular reasons are bad luck in love, family problems, debts or diseases.
Phan Van Hanh, a bridge guard, said that one day he saw a person attempting suicide. He could not reach her in time, because the victims only need to squeeze their bodies through the low handrail to fall to the sea. The handrail itself is only 1.5 meter high.
Hanh said whenever he sees someone who stands alone at the bridge handrail, he thinks that he/she may attempt suicide.
People fight against sea-god
Bai Chay’s 40 guards patrol it 24/7; it is considered a strategic structure. Their duty is protecting and ensuring traffic flows on the bridge and its approaches, nearly 10 kilometers of road. But the guards have had an additional job, preventing suicides.
Chief guard Kiem said the guards always try at their best to stop suicides though they fear that saving these people is against the will of the sea-god.
How can you tell a potential suicide? Kiem said it is difficult to know exactly, but the guards have premonitions. If they see anyone who shows abnormal behaviour, like crying, walking, having disheveled hair or standing listlessly alone on the bridge for a long time, guards will follow at a certain distance.
Some people just can’t be saved, a guide remarked. For example, one of the first victims was a 23-year-old girl from Ha Long City who rode her motorbike onto the bridge. She stopped at the top, parked and jumped out to the sea. Her boyfriend had just said goodbye to her because his family didn’t like the girl.
There was a girl who was stopped just in time. Guards admonished her and she promised to not do such a foolish thing. Shortly afterward, she still committed suicide.
Kiem said most of the suicide victims are very young and choose to die for unrequited love. However, there was a special case in which a man tried to force his girlfriend to jump off of the bridge. Guards successfully rescued the girl.
For several hours late in 2006, the Ha Long City police and Bai Chay Bridge guards reasoned with a young man bent on suicide. This man’s family wouldn’t allow him to marry a girl from Bac Giang province. He asked the police to invite his family to the bridge to witness his suicide. He promised he would reconsider if the family allowed him to marry his girlfriend. His mother, in this situation, immediately agreed with him. Then the man asked police to bring his girlfriend from Bac Giang to the bridge. Finally, the girl arrived by taxi to meet her crazy boyfriend on the bridge.
According to Kiem, bridge guards always have to keep an eye on any person with unusual behaviour, but when guards approach to these people to talk, they are scolded for curiosity or rudeness. Some people even think that guards are bad guys.
Bridge guards have become “psychologists,” learning to talk to, explain and dissuade world-weary people from their suicide plans. A guard named Pham Van Hanh still keeps a message of a would-be victim on his mobile phone: “Thank you, because of you I am not dead. It would have been a big waste, a thoughtless action done in a hot moment! Thank you for giving me a chance to live!”
Hanh said this message was texted him by a young girl who attempted suicide at midnight, also because of blighted love.
Hanh said he is very happy whenever he can talk a person into giving up their suicide. Hanh and his teammates are obsessed; they feel guilt when they fail, thinking that they ran faster, just in a footstep more, they might have rescued another person.
Hanh said he didn’t understand while many young people wanted to die so easily, because the life is still very beautiful.
How to prevent suicides?
Local people say that a net should be hung, or the current handrail raised to prevent suicides. Some measures are needed to impede the process so there is enough time to prevent suicides. It is believed that in the few seconds that they are falling freely from the bridge, some victims have regretted their folly.
Vu Van Bac, Deputy Director of the Quang Ninh Bridge and Ferry Management Company, the operator of Bai Chay bridge, said that many people suggested to hang a net beneath the bridge rail but that net will make the bridge ugly, so the company hasn’t decided whether to hang a net or raise the handrail yet.
In his opinion, victims determined to commit suicide will find a place to do it – not just at Bai Chay Bridge. A net will not stop people who want to die.
Controversies about the Bai Chay bridge prompt comparisons to the Golden Gate Bridge across San Francisco Bay in the US. In the 72 years since it was opened, over 1300 have committed suicide by jumping from this bridge. However, the local government is determined to protect the lethal beauty of this bridge and has refused to hang a net there. In a survey about the construction of railings on this bridge to prevent suicides, most respondents said that it is a waste to do so because anyone who wants to die will seek every way to die. They have the right to live, so they also have the right to die.
In the mournful history of the Golden Gate Bridge, there are 26 survivors. And one victim had a very famous statement. When he was asked “What did you think when you was falling freely? He said “I thought that all the horrible things I have faced so far can be solved but one. That was I jumped off the bridge”.
VietNamNet/Tien Phong Other news for Monday 27 July, 2009 View all news for Monday 27 July, 2009 on one page News for Sunday 26 July, 2009 View all news for Sunday 26 July, 2009 on one page Recent News
|
|
