Another major problem is that these invasive species in most cases spread so strongly and quickly due to the lack of natural enemies in the new areas where they appear.
No cause identified yet, says DW. Fortunate that it was in the early morning and nobody was on the bridge.
No, German bridges also know how to fall into rivers.
And the problems may become even greater due to the massive rainfall announced in the Giant Mountains and Czech Republic in the next few days, thus possibly flooding on the Elbe River.On the collapsing bridge, infrastructure and such ... they were actually in the process of refurbishing/rebuilding the bridge, since 2019.
It's a prestressed concrete construction finished in 1971.
Effectively it's three separate spans parallel to each other, two of them had been refurbished and the third one ("C" in the pic), which was supposed to be worked on next year, has now collapsed.
A number of bridge constructions from this era have been quite problematic, sudden collapse due to corrosion of the embedded steel has been a thing (such as in the Genoa bridge collapse some years ago). In this case luckily nobody was on it.
Investigations will have to show whether the structural state of span C was perhaps just worse than could be judged from the outside, and perhaps vibrations, inadvertent damage, tension changes etc during the refurbishment of the other parts just added the last bit of disturbance to cause a cascading failure. Or whether there was some gross incompetence involved.
But in this case, authorities did have the need to renew infrastructure on the radar, and where investing.
Just as renovations of treasured historic buildings are sometimes exactly when fires break out, sometimes restructuring is exactly when everything comes down.
Okay I never knew that's the official English name for them but it is!
Apparently they're Riesengebirge 'giants' mountains' in German. And they've been called 'The Giant Mountains' in English travel writing at least since 1719, though I don't know if it's ever been made 'official', maybe we're rather less preoccupied with making things 'official'. But, like a lot of names for mountain and hill ranges, they've had many and various names in the past, only relatively recently settled down as Krkonoše (Czech), Karkonosze (Polish), and Riesengebirge. (credit to Wiki!)
Apparently the name refers to a giant, named Rübezahl, that was thought to live in the mountains.
Well, that may be, but the giant might have been suggested by the mountain-name. I think they're really Riesling-gebirge
Poking around a bit it seems the name expanded from the dominant peak, today called Schneekoppe (snowcap). It's attested as a singular Hrisenberg which one would tend to render as Riesenberg today, and interpret as something to do with giants, or being big. The name then expanded to the entire range.
I only know of many old villagers who come from Silesia. Almost every third person in our village is from there.
Yes, but if the giant was female it would have been the Riesinnengebirge. So we know the giant was male.
Well, drinking enough Riesling does lubricate the way for any number of decisions, depending on how "slippery" one makes oneself.
I'm sort of addicted to TV documentary series about disasters and catastrophes; plane crashes, train wrecks, building collapses, etc. There seem to be three main causes for these sort of things. 1) Design and construction errors. 2) Maintenance lapses. 3) Outside forces.On the collapsing bridge, infrastructure and such ... they were actually in the process of refurbishing/rebuilding the bridge, since 2019.
It's a prestressed concrete construction finished in 1971.
Effectively it's three separate spans parallel to each other, two of them had been refurbished and the third one ("C" in the pic), which was supposed to be worked on next year, has now collapsed.
A number of bridge constructions from this era have been quite problematic, sudden collapse due to corrosion of the embedded steel has been a thing (such as in the Genoa bridge collapse some years ago). In this case luckily nobody was on it.
Investigations will have to show whether the structural state of span C was perhaps just worse than could be judged from the outside, and perhaps vibrations, inadvertent damage, tension changes etc during the refurbishment of the other parts just added the last bit of disturbance to cause a cascading failure. Or whether there was some gross incompetence involved.
But in this case, authorities did have the need to renew infrastructure on the radar, and were investing.
Just as renovations of treasured historic buildings are sometimes exactly when fires break out, sometimes restructuring is exactly when everything comes down.
Maybe one of the mountains resembles part of a giant.
