Dresden residents coping with traffic chaos after one of the German city’s main bridges collapsed in September had a further headache this month when demolition crews found an unexploded, 250kg Second World War bomb under it.
Around 10,000 people within a 1km radius of the site were told to evacuate by 9am on 9 January while specialists from the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Service attempted to remove the detonator from the device dropped from a British bomber.
They gave the all-clear at around 1pm.
The operation involved 600 police officers, 119 firefighters, and 92 medical personnel, the city government said.
The Soviet-era Carola Bridge, completed in 1971, is the most central of the city’s four bridges across the Elbe, linking the Old and New towns.
On 11 September last year, one of its three decks collapsed without warning at about 3am, just 10 minutes after the last tram of the night passed over.
No one was hurt, but Dresdeners woke in the morning to traffic chaos.
“The bridge is a lifeline for the people, the economy and the culture of this city. It is the most important north-south connection,” said Dresden mayor Dirk Hilbert.
Problems started during construction
The city appointed Prof Steffen Marx from the Institute of Concrete Structures at Technical University Dresden to examine the cause of the collapse.
He unveiled interim findings on 11 December, identifying the main cause as hydrogen-induced stress corrosion cracking due to moisture ingress during the construction phase, exacerbated by fatigue of the prestressing steels.
The problem affects the bridge’s two other decks, meaning the whole bridge needs replacing.
“Due to the manufacturing method commonly used 50 years ago and the influence of the weather on the steel during the construction period, the corrosion damage already occurred during the construction of the Carola Bridge,” he wrote.
The findings raise concerns about other bridges built at the time.
Unique problem for Germany
Meanwhile, state broadcaster DW reported in June last year that as many as 5,000 Autobahn bridges were decrepit and in need of repair or replacement.
The situation would be a big problem for any country, but it’s uniquely problematic for Germany because of its controversial “debt brake”, a clause in the Basic Law, Germany’s constitution, inserted after the financial crash of 2008 making it illegal for the federal government to run up a deficit greater than 0.35% of its GDP.
Germany is the only G7 country with such a stricture. The EU rule for member states is eight times as generous, at 3% of GDP.
All eyes on 23 February
German construction industry representatives have warned that prolonged budget uncertainty brought about by the collapse of the country’s government in December is putting vital transport infrastructure at risk.
All eyes are now on the outcome of snap elections on 23 February, and the potentially protracted period of forming a new coalition that will follow.
Friedrich Merz of the Christian Democratic Union party is currently ahead in the polls.
In November last year, he suggested he was open to reforming the debt brake for vital investment, but any such move will depend on the vagaries of coalition wrangling.
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