My civ engineer friend says that bridges are supposed to have barriers in front of their pylons for this particular reason - in the event of a collision, the barrier would be destroyed but not the pylon.
I can’t find any bridges which have a barrier that can protect against a fully loaded container ship. I have seen plenty of barriers which would protect against personal watercraft and smaller working ships like smaller tugs/coast guard ships/shrimping boats, etc.
But a loaded container ship at 8 knots is not going to be stopped by anything remotely feasible.
Container ships weigh between 50,000 and 220,000 tons. A US aircraft carrier weighs 100,000 tons.
They do. I would think that that bridge certainly did as well, it’s part of a busy port. It’s not exactly hard to imagine it happening.
My guess, and it is a total guess, is that the protection on the bridge was nowhere near sufficient for a ship of that tonnage.
I’m assuming it was built to whatever the correct standard was when constructed in the 70s. I’m also assuming the ship weighed far more, or perhaps traveled noticeably faster, than the cargo ships going into the port back then.
Basically I’m guessing it needed an upgrade in its protective barriers but it wasn’t recognized or hadn’t happed if it was.
Some bridges have fenders, my understanding is that with existing brudges whether they can be retrofitted, even if resources exists, depends on the channel and the kind of traffic it needs to handle, because they take up soace that can be nontrivial in a tight channel.
