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| Locals in Hải Trường Commune used steel bars to reinforce the weakened bridge temporarily. Photo laodong.vn |
Viet Nam News
QUẢNG TRỊ — Commuters in central QuảngTrị Province are risking their lives commuting on old, unsafe bridges, which have been weakened by recent floods in the locality.
Hải Lăng, a remote district in the province, has 170 concrete bridges across its canals. Forty of them were built in the 1980s and are getting weak due to time-related deterioration and increasing number of commuters.
Trương Hòa, a 60-year-old resident in the district’s Hải Trường Commune, said he found more travelers using the nearby bridge despite its risky status. Hòa said months ago, the bridge vibrated whenever a commuter travelled on it, forcing locals to reinforce it through temporary measures.
Recently, residents tied steel bars with the bridge poles in an attempt to reduce vibration on the bridge when commuters travelled on it. Locals said many bridges in the district are in very bad condition.
A statistic report made by the district’s economy and infrastructure division said 2,800 commuters travelled on the bridges daily. Trần Kim Cương, the division’s deputy head, said all these bridges were built from 1980 to 1985, with concrete, steel and wooden structures.
Cương said the division was aware of the status of these small bridges, but was struggling to find a sound capital source for construction of new bridges to replace the existing ones.
According to Cương, the district’s authorities have received no reply yet in response to the call for capital for these bridges. — VNS
