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Baltimore Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse

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tom66:
Looks like a major disaster, with many people in the water, after a ship collided with the bridge structure and the bridge collapsed.

https://bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-us-canada-68663071

Fortunately, fatalities are going to be lower just because of the time at night but multiple vehicles and at least a work crew have gone into the water, so almost certainly several will have died.  It's not clear if anyone on board the ship was injured.

Going to be an expensive day for the marine insurers.   I thought bridges like this were designed to resist the collision of a ship? Is this a design fail?  The bridge is, or was, roughly 50 years old, so it's within the range of time that you'd expect considerations like this to have been made.

SiliconWizard:
 :o

rsjsouza:
What an unfortunate event... The video of the collapse is very impressive - the bridge crumbles as if it was made of paper.

Bridges that collapsed after collisions have happened before and I wouldn't be surprised if negligence or corruption related to its maintenance were critical factors in this case.

Whales:
That brings up an interesting question: are those bridges designed to survive single-ship impacts like that?  We'd hope so, but I wonder if it's actually a requirement.

guenthert:
I'm pretty sure that with a massive enough ship sailing fast enough, one could take down any bridge.  I'd think for that reason, there will be limits to what ship and how fast may approach such a bridge.  Were those limits exceeded?

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