Lo River Bridge Incident: Building a temporary plan to transport people across the river

According to the People's Committee of Doan Hung Commune, Phu Tho, the deterioration of Song Lo Bridge leading to the closure of the bridge has affected more than 2,500 households with 9,700 people, causing difficulties in daily life, study and production and business of people on both sides of the river. Along with that, the current traffic diversions make students go to school every day with a distance of more than 40 km (if going over the bridge, the distance is only about 3 km).

Phu Tho province bans all people and vehicles from traveling through Song Lo bridge to ensure safety. Photo: Ta Toan/VNA

Faced with this situation, the People's Committee of Doan Hung commune has urgently coordinated with Doan Hung Water Transport Cooperative to develop a plan for the temporary cross-river passenger wharf operation, ensuring full safety conditions such as life jackets, life buoys, lighting, directional signs, sirens, fire extinguishers, rescue equipment, etc. It is expected that the ferry wharf will be put into operation from October 31, 2025.

Phu Tho province has also requested relevant departments and branches to urgently review and assess the overall damage level of all pillars of the Lo River Bridge as well as the quality of the project. In the immediate future, road and bridge experts will be invited to clarify the cause and propose feasible solutions to fix the problem.

Immediately after discovering the damaged bored pile incident at Song Lo bridge, Phu Tho Department of Construction immediately intervened, directed to temporarily stop traffic and invited an independent consulting unit to inspect the quality.

According to the Department of Construction of Phu Tho province, at the foot of the T3 pillar of the Song Lo bridge, the drilled piles exposed the soil core and rusted steel reinforcement and were very different from the piles of other pillars. The risk of insecurity could occur at any time for people and vehicles traveling across the bridge.

The T3 pillar of Song Lo bridge was damaged, exposing the entire concrete and steel structure under the foot of the bridge. Photo: Ta Toan/VNA

Construction of Lo River Bridge began in 2010 and was completed and put into operation in 2015. The bridge is 517.8m long, 7.5m wide, with a 6.5m wide roadway and 0.5m wide railings on each side.

The bridge consists of 9 spans, 8 piers and 2 abutments, of which the main girder consists of 3 continuous box girder spans made of prestressed reinforced concrete constructed by the balanced cantilever method; 6 approach spans made of prestressed reinforced concrete L-shaped girders.

For many years now, this bridge has shown signs of serious deterioration and has had to be temporarily closed to traffic. In particular, the river erosion has caused severe damage to the bridge pier foundation in the middle of the river.

Not long before, the old Doan Hung bridge was also repaired for 18 billion VND.

This is also a bridge located on a vital traffic route, Doan Hung Bridge ensures inter-provincial traffic between the old Ha Giang - Tuyen Quang with the old Phu Tho and Vinh Phuc provinces along National Highway 2. Although it has been repaired, the bridge body and piers have been built for many years and are seriously degraded...

Source: https://baotintuc.vn/thoi-su/su-co-cau-song-lo-xay-dung-phuong-an-dua-nguoi-dan-qua-song-tam-thoi-20251030112051264.htm