(11 Apr 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dresden, Germany – 1 April 2025
1. Wide of partially collapsed bridge
2. Close of partially collapsed bridge
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Berlin – 8 April 2025
3. SOUNDBITE (German) Monika Schnitzer, German Council of Economic Experts chairwoman:
++PART COVERED BY SHOTS 1,2,4,5++
“The Germans are actually very good engineers. You would think that everything works. At the same time, the Germans are also very good at saving — and they saved for a very long time particularly on this infrastructure, on bridges. For many years, you don’t even realise that the bridge hasn’t been renovated. But then, when it collapses, you realise that something should have been done much earlier.”
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Berlin – 4 April 2025
4. Partly demolished bridge
5. Close of metal cables coming out of demolished bridge
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Berlin – 31 March 2025
6. Wide of traffic on highway, sign showing one lane closed
7. Worker cutting through guardrail on closed bridge
8. Excavator working on closed bridge
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Bad Schandau, Germany – 1 April 2025
9. SOUNDBITE (German) Steffen Marx, civil engineer:
++PART COVERED BY SHOTS 6-8 & 11-14++
“The main reason is that we don’t take enough care of things. That we just don’t maintain infrastructure and we do far too little cleaning, repairing, strengthening.”All things we do in our private buildings. But we literally let our public infrastructure rot away. You can’t win political points with maintenance and preservation. It’s just boring and not really spectacular. But it becomes spectacular when you neglect it."
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Berlin – 31 March 2025
10. Close of trucks and cars driving over damaged asphalt
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dresden, Germany – 1 April 2025
11. Worker walking near closed bridge
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Berlin – 31 March 2025
12. Damaged bridge
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Dresden, Germany – 1 April 2025
13. Wide of partially collapsed bridge
14. Close of collapsed bridge
STORYLINE:
Germany’s reputation for efficiency is taking a hit from crumbling concrete. Cracks and collapses are also a risk to its economy, Europe’s biggest.
The European Union’s most populous member is trying to turn around a problem with worn-out infrastructure — including about 4,000 bridges that need modernizing or replacing over the next decade.
All too frequently, unexpected scares about the state of bridges cause short-notice closures that bring local gridlock. Occasionally, it is worse than that.
In Dresden, a bridge dating back to 1971 partially collapsed in the middle of the night in September due to corrosion.
No one was hurt, but the collapse snarled traffic and temporarily blocked shipping on the Elbe River. The remains of the Carola bridge have yet to be removed.
The collapse prompted checks on similarly designed bridges — including one in Bad Schandau, a small town further up the Elbe near the Czech border.
It was shut abruptly to all traffic in November as a precaution, leaving locals with a 20-kilometer (12 1/2-mile) trip to the nearest road crossing until it reopened on Thursday — albeit with a 7.5-ton weight limit.
Even as the situation eases in Bad Schandau, Berliners are steaming over the abrupt closure last month of a bridge on a busy highway after a widening crack was detected.
It will now be demolished quickly.
The outage snarled traffic in a large section of the capital, forced the weeks-long closure of a commuter railway line and prompted the government to cough up 150 million euros ($164 million) for its urgent rebuilding.
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