The Roads and Motorways Directorate and the Railway Infrastructure Administration have received orders from the minister of transport, ANO appointee Dan Ťok, to inspect bridges built from the 1960s to the 1980s in the Czech Republic.
Concerns have been sparked by the collapse of the Morandi Bridge in the Italian city of Genoa, which was constructed in the mid-1960s. Of the 1,000 or so Czech bridges due for inspection around 600 are road bridges and the remainder carry trains.
The minister has also called on the country’s regional authorities, which are responsible for second and third-class roads, to send out inspectors. Six of country’s first class road bridges have already been found to be in a calamitous state.
They have been closed and await repair or demolition. Over 350 railway bridges have been repaired but none are judged to be in a calamitous state. The state has earmarked CZK 1.5 billion for the modernization of bridges this year.
Author: red
