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from the but-lets-talk-about-their-aquaducts dept.
A long section of the towering Ponte Morandi Bridge completely collapsed in Genoa, Italy, on Tuesday, sending cars and trucks on the A10 highway crashing down below. Dozens of people died in the bridge failure, officials say.
As news emerged from the chaotic scene, the death toll fluctuated several times Tuesday. Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte said there were 22 dead, according to public broadcaster Rai News. But Italy's ANSA news agency has reported at least 37 people died, citing the fire brigade.
Workers have found bodies and vehicles in the massive amount of wreckage left by the collapse — and at least 11 people have been pulled from the rubble alive, Italian media report.
[...] The disaster struck shortly before noon, when one of the bridge's central pillars collapsed during a violent rainstorm. A witness told ANSA that lightning had struck the bridge before the collapse.
[...] The bridge was built in the late 1960s, at a length of more than 3,600 feet. It had recently been the subject of renovation and repair efforts. Italian roadway company Autostrade says the most recent work included consolidating the viaduct's base — a project that included installing a bridge crane.
Besides the obvious news value of this event, I'd be curious of any civil engineers or structural engineers could comment on the engineering behind such things. What causes these types of crumblings to happen, and exactly how reliable is infrastructure around the world?
(Score: 5, Informative) by Thexalon on Thursday August 16 2018, @01:16PM (1 child)
The timeline seems to be approximately this:
1945-1965: Thanks to a massive government investment in public works and infrastructure, bridges were built all over the US and Europe. This bridges were designed with an expected lifespan of 50 years, which was seen at the time to be a pretty good compromise between durability and cost.
1995-2015: The politicians in charge of the governments in question are now faced with the prospect of replacing those bridges. But replacing bridges is expensive and difficult, and taxpayers don't like paying for it. Plus it reduces money available for those politicians' pet projects. So instead, they try to maintain the old bridges instead in a half-assed sort of way (for instance, in my area there was a bridge where they were reducing the weight on it by simply blocking off several lanes - this has thankfully been replaced in the last couple of years).
2005-present: A bunch of the bridges collapse, exactly as predicted when they were built. Everyone acts like this is a surprise that nobody could have possibly predicted. Which conveniently absolves all of those who had the predictions in front of them and chose to ignore them.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by toddestan on Saturday August 18 2018, @04:18AM
To add to the fun, many of the major bridges built before WWII had an expected lifespan of 80 years, and the ones built around the turn of the previous century were expected to last a century. So it's not just the 50-year old bridges bridges reaching the end of their lives, a lot of the remaining older bridges that are 80-100 years old are also at the point where they either need to be replaced or require extensive renovations.