Tragedy announced: 2021 study warns of risk of bridge collapse on BR-319

Ívina Garcia – From Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The collapse of two bridges at kilometres 23 and 25 on the paved stretch of BR-319, located in the municipality of Careiro da Várzea, in late September, was a tragedy foretold, according to researchers from the Biodiversity Research Program of the National Institute for Amazon Research (PPBio/Inpa).

The article “Burying water and biodiversity through road constructions in Brazil”, warned about the dangers as early as 2021.

The research was presented to the National Department of Transport Infrastructure (Dnit) during public hearings on the middle stretch, held in 2021 in Manaus. According to the study, there was an incompatibility between the works planned for the recovery of the highway and the local geographic characteristics.

According to environmentalist and geographer Carlos Durigan, the BR-319 was built on top of landfills, that is, several stretches have rivers covered by earth or rubble, so that it was leveled the ground, and this type of work needs greater attention. “These embankments need to have frequent monitoring and maintenance and in certain stretches, they need better structured works”, says the expert.

Read more: AM countryside residents suffer with high prices of products after bridge collapse on BR-319

Durigan points out that the seasonality, that is, when the parts below the bridges get flooded and then suffer from the intense heat of the drought, end up affecting any type of work in these environments. “BR-319 has its bed established along kilometres of embankments, as it crosses extensive areas of floodplains and other types of water landscapes, which suffer annual flooding”, he explains.

The collapse of the structures affected over 140 thousand people in the municipalities of Careiro da Várzea, Autazes, Careiro and Manaquiri, in the countryside of Amazonas. As shown by CENARIUM MAGAZINE, product prices were high, even running the risk of shortages.

One of the authors of the article, the researcher at the National Institute for Amazon Research (Inpa) William Ernest Magnusson clarifies that the problem at the site is due to the way the landfill was done and that, in the images of the bridge collapse, it was possible to notice that the water had dug around the bridge supports.

“The landfill of Permanent Protection Areas [APPs], at the head of the bridges, directed all the force of the water to the columns that support the structures during the flood period. It is not the pulse of the river that is the problem, the problem is the landfill of the APPs, with access ramps instead of bridges crossing the entire area”, he explains.

It is noteworthy that according to Article 63 of Law No. 9605 / 1998, of environmental crimes, the earthwork or landfill of APPs are prohibited by law and constitute a crime. The disrespect to this rule culminated in the collapse of the bridges.

Read more: Second bridge collapses on BR-319; Dnit teams investigate cause of collapse

“The river fills every year, causing the infiltration of water into the ground. When the river lowers and there is the ‘exfiltration’ of water into the soil, there is a risk that the soil will collapse and lead to the collapse of the soil, the collapse of what was embanked, earthworked, as happens with stretches of road. Even more so in lowland roads, as in the case of BR-319”, said the researcher.

Responsibility of the federal government, through the Dnit, the stretch of the second bridge received a provisional work, of a passage, made from embankment. On the first bridge a ferry was made available to make free crossing for those passing through the site.

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