[Photo/Xinhua]

Seven people were killed, and nine others went missing after a construction rope broke at a bridge under construction on the Qinghai section of the Sichuan-Qinghai Railway around 3 am on Friday.

According to People's Daily, at the time of the incident, 15 construction workers and one on-site manager from the engineering project department were working. Rescue operations are ongoing, it said.

The Ministry of Emergency Management has dispatched a task force to the accident site to guide and coordinate rescue efforts, focusing on searching for people who fell into the water.

[Photo/Xinhua]

In addition, the ministry has affirmed that it would quickly investigate the cause of the accident to prevent similar incidents in the future.

The bridge, located at the border between Jianzha county in the Huangnan Tibetan autonomous prefecture and Hualong Hui autonomous county in Haidong, Qinghai province, is the first steel truss arch railway bridge in China to cross the Yellow River.

The bridge's cable towers were completed on June 14, with plans to join them this month.