Overview
The head of the Sverdlovsk Railway, Shevket Shaidullin, said damage caused by the incident was “quite significant.”
“A total of 111 freight trains and 104 passenger trains were delayed. Changes to the train schedule incurred big costs,” he said.
He said, however, that the railway tracks had not been damaged.
Three of 10 reinforced-concrete beams of the bridge span above the railway fell onto the rail tracks. Work to dismantle the other six remaining beams was conducted through the joint efforts of railwaymen and builders. The bridge beams were first separated from one another by slits and then lowered to the ground by means of emergency train jibs.
The automobile bridge that was under construction in the center of Yekaterinburg collapsed at the crossing of Shevchenko and Vostochnaya Streets on Monday afternoon. Traffic along Vostochnaya Street that is one of the main highways of the city was blocked. According to Sverdlovsk Railways, east- and west-bound train traffic through the Sverdlovsk junction station was also stopped.
City Mayor Arkady Mikhailovich Chernetsky said a gross design mistake might have caused the collapse of the bridge.
Read more about this topic: Yekaterinburg Bridge Collapse