The recent bridge collapse incident in Genoa has raised concerns in France, with reports commissioned into the condition of the Highways bridges revealing that 840 bridges are at risk of collapse in the medium term.
CIOB Global Construction Review (GCR) writes:
The collapse of the Morandi bridge in Genoa has created concern in France over the state of the country’s bridges, about a third of which need repair or maintenance.
A report produced by the Ministry of Transport, published in July, has created unease over the state of the 12,000 bridges in the country’s highway network. According to the report, around 4,000 of them require some level of repair, but 840 are at risk of collapse in the medium term.
Christian Tridon, president of the National Union of Specialist Contractors, told the Franceinfo website, that the number as risk could be higher. He said: ‘These 7% are bridges that we have evaluated, but there are all the others that we do not monitor. And if we do not go see them, we cannot know what state they are in.’
He added that, as well as the major bridges in the study, there are another 180,000 minor structures, one for every 5km of road….
Two Swiss engineers are presently employed by the ministry to go through the inspection reports on the 12,000 bridges to identify the ones most in need of action.
Download the original report (in French)
Read the Guardian article on bridge condition reports throughout Europe
For more information on the Morandi Bridge see the New Civil Engineer
