China's maritime search and rescue center said on Thursday morning that an empty cargo vessel hit a bridge under construction near the eastern seaport of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province.

The Ministry of Communications said on its website that at 1:20 AM., the ship, Qinfeng 128, struck the Jintang Bridge, which is being built to connect Ningbo to adjacent highways.

A section of the 26-kilometer bridge was seriously damaged.

Of the 20 crew members aboard, four were missing and 16 were rescued. Experts speculated that the missing crew members might have been trapped in the cabin by the impact of the crash.

Nobody was working on the bridge at the time, the website said.

The ship, 134 meters long and 19 meters wide, is owned by a local shipping company. The maritime search and rescue center has dispatched seven salvage ships to the site and the ministry set up a team to investigate the cause of the accident.