Yesterday, a user from Volgograd wrote to me about an emergency involving a newly built bridge. And attached a video:
Today the media are already reporting on it, and there’s an even more insane video:
The guy writes that the bridge had just been opened, took 15 years to build, and cost some unimaginable number of billions. He also claims that reports saying the bridge was swaying because of an extraordinarily powerful hurricane-force wind are a lie. Quoting: *Don’t believe the official media saying the bridge is swaying because of some extreme wind. I live in Volgograd near the Volga, and I just went outside — it’s an ordinary breeze. We get real hurricanes here too, since we live near the border with Kazakhstan, and the wind has plenty of open space to gather force. When the wind is strong, trees fall onto cars and people like it’s nothing. What happens in a real hurricane? Will the bridge collapse? *Question for people in Volgograd: is this for real? Question for people who understand bridges and bridge construction: Can this even happen? Is this the result of money being siphoned off and corners being cut on construction technology? In general, when you stand on a long bridge, you can always feel a slight sway. Once I got stuck in traffic at the highest point of the Brateyevo Bridge, and it actually made me seasick. But here the oscillations have an amplitude of two (!) meters. They say cars were being tossed up and turned around. Wikipedia says that the Volgograd Bridge is *one of the key projects in the comprehensive development program for the Volgograd transport hub, as well as one of the largest transport infrastructure facilities of national significance in Russia.[2] According to the Institute for Systems Analysis of the Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS), the bridge crossing over the Volga near Volgograd is “a highly efficient facility, both from the standpoint of society as a whole and from the standpoint of commercial interests.” * It seems rather strange that a new “key highly efficient facility” was closed because of strong wind. Update. Here is the full version of the video (for those who think it’s fake):
Update 2 The reasons why the bridge was built so badly have been found. They’re banal.
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