Factoter - what I was hinting at is that it's stupidity to claim that a skinny narrow bridge design like that can't sway or bounce around or else it fails. That thing will always be moving around. It's not a design that is expected to remain in a static location. A good wind storm will probably sway that bridge around worse than any group of people could ever achieve.
It was lack of maintenance. If whoever was in charge couldn't manage to detect the cables were in need of replacement then it was doomed to fail.
LionelHutz; these points, of inspection, of design limits, and various others, are only too valid, and in deed only sensible; and go a step further: this bridge ought not to have been reopened, but rather condemned, and removed. My point, if there is one, is that this collapse defies all reason, not in terms of mechanical failings, but rather human failure—- this whole business is like a great parody or pantomime of reality, a bad dream, that isn’t a dream. That being the case, we are left with only intangibles, as the root cause here is not quantifiable but rather cultural and moral. Failures seem to very often encompass moral failings, this is clearly such a case, others less so. . .
From it we see that the Indian Road Ministry completed an inventory of bridges and culverts in 2017. Out of 160,186 bridges, 147 were found to be in "dilapidated condition". Bridge inspection was to be completed in three years. Thus we know the bridge was inspected between 2 and 5 years ago by this Ministry.
The article states that they have GPS locations for these various bridges, so it should be easy to find the report for this bridge, through the Ministry.
I should think a copy of it will be produced at any moment by the diligent Indian press. And the equally diligent Ministry.
This forum seems more vulnerable to "off-the-road-ing" than the others I subscribe to.[ ] Perhaps because a lot of the issues that arise on it do not, and can not, have precise answers?
According to an ABC (Australian) report, an Indian state government investigation team has determined that "broken corroded wires, improper welding and changes to the walking surface of a 145-year-old hanging bridge in India contributed to its collapse last year that killed 135 people".
The report suggested 22 of 49 (44%) wires in the main cable may already have been broken before the collapse. Littleinch was not too far off the mark in his 1 Nov post with a suggestion that 2/3 of the wires had already snapped.
