Bridge is second in a month to be hit by container ship
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore is the second disaster in a month involving a container ship ramming into a major road crossing, raising questions about how they are built to sustain hits from huge vessels
On 22 February, in the southern China port of Guangzhou, a ship carrying containers ploughed into a two-lane bridge, causing it to snap in half. Five people were killed after vehicles tumbled into the Pearl River.
Structural engineers said the size of modern container ships meant that bridges were more vulnerable than in the past.
Ian Firth, a consultant with more than 40 years’ experience, said he was not surprised the Francis Scott Key Bridge had collapsed following the collision.
He said: “It’s a relatively lightweight bridge support clearly not designed for any kind of significant impact. Those vessels impart massive forces, several thousands of tons, those supports are clearly not designed to withstand it.
“The strategy has to be preventing such an impact from happening, so by using some kind of protection device around the bridge support to stop the ship, deflect it, slow it down sufficiently but obviously, that didn’t do the job.”
Mr Firth added that following the collapse of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Florida in 1980, designers across the world became more “alert” to the risk of very large ships hitting bridges.
Thirty-five people were killed when six cars, a truck, and a bus plunged 150ft into Tampa Bay after a freighter collided with a support column.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge opened in 1977 after five years of construction and at an estimated cost of $110m (£87m). City officials had originally planned to build a tunnel instead, but a bridge carried lower operating and maintenance costs.