Maybe that is why the bridge came down, because it only took 4 years to build and the building standards from the 70s are very different from the safety measures used now?
I am guessing this is going to surprise you but new bridges build protections around the pillars so that any accident like this hit the protection instead of the pillars.
And you obviously have not seen protective pillars around the main bridge pillar, this is not science fiction, hundreds of bridges around the World already have this. Anyway you will see them in 10 years if you are to lazy to use a search engine.
It's also the type of bridge, and the sheer size of that ship...
I live in a city with a massive concrete box girder bridge. When a ship probably about half that size (and I imagine, much less mass) hit a similar pylon, in the mid-70s, only two sections of it came down.
Admittedly, it sank the ship, and killed many more people, but then they just rebuilt those sections, left one less pylon, and ta-dah, she's still standing, 50 years later, so...
You're not wrong that bridge design plays a part.
However the bridge in question has massive concrete protections around the base of its pylons. Whether those were in place in 1975, I do not know (or whether they are later additions), but... It didn't seem to stop what happened.
But regardless, yeah, it's just interesting to see the same sort of situation play out here, except with an entirely different result...
Water is like, 5 times deeper, here, though. I'm not sure if that played a part, too...
Maybe that is why the bridge came down, because it only took 4 years to build and the building standards from the 70s are very different from the safety measures used now?
Did you miss the part where a cargo ship hit it?
I am guessing this is going to surprise you but new bridges build protections around the pillars so that any accident like this hit the protection instead of the pillars.
Do you understand the kinetic forces involved in that kind of impact?
And you obviously have not seen protective pillars around the main bridge pillar, this is not science fiction, hundreds of bridges around the World already have this. Anyway you will see them in 10 years if you are to lazy to use a search engine.
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It's also the type of bridge, and the sheer size of that ship...
I live in a city with a massive concrete box girder bridge. When a ship probably about half that size (and I imagine, much less mass) hit a similar pylon, in the mid-70s, only two sections of it came down.
Admittedly, it sank the ship, and killed many more people, but then they just rebuilt those sections, left one less pylon, and ta-dah, she's still standing, 50 years later, so...
You're not wrong that bridge design plays a part.
However the bridge in question has massive concrete protections around the base of its pylons. Whether those were in place in 1975, I do not know (or whether they are later additions), but... It didn't seem to stop what happened.
But regardless, yeah, it's just interesting to see the same sort of situation play out here, except with an entirely different result...
Water is like, 5 times deeper, here, though. I'm not sure if that played a part, too...