Essay: Bridge Construction, Quo Vadis?
On 14 August 2018, the Morandi Bridge in Genoa collapsed and 43 people fell to their deaths. With so many lives lost, this collapse is a frightful tragedy and of almost traumatic significance for structural engineers working in bridge construction. We do not know exactly what occurred, but we have many questions. How could that happen? What risks do structures of this generation hold in general? What can we do, what must we do, to guarantee their safety? As yet, there are no official answers but suspicions about the causes and the knock-on effects for bridge construction are intensively discussed among industry professionals. These events are a painful reminder to engineers of the great responsibility they carry with their work and everyday decisions.
