Introduction
The West Gate Bridge in Melbourne today stands as one of the busiest traffic routes in Australia. The need for its construction became clear in the 1960’s as Melbourne was expanding. The bridge spans the Yara River linking the CBD with Melbourne's Western Suburbs. The combination of the western industrial suburbs and City of Geelong, the bridge is one of Australia’s busiest traffic corridors.
The bridge uses a cable-stayed design to span river with a main river span of 336 meters long and 58 meters high. The total length of the bridge is 2.5 kilometres, at the pf construction time it was the longest in Australia but it now sits as the 3rd longest and second highest.
The Collapse
Two years into construction on October 15, 1970, a 112 meter span collapsed into the river below. Thirty-five construction workers were killed, many of whom were on break sitting below the bridge. The span weighing 2000 tonnes plummeted 50 meters crushing those below, trapping some inside the bridge and the sound could be heard from 20 kilometres away. Gas explosions only made the
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Ward (Royale Commission 1971). The written instructions referred to straightening the buckle on span 10-11 “without further delay”. At 0830 the next day, work began. In order to straighten the buckle a series of bolts had to removed, after the first 16 were loosened from a plate the slippage was so severe that the bolts became jammed. Senior Inspector Enness of Steel Work for FF&P suggest the use of an air gun to break the bolts and blow the pieces out of their holes. After 30 bolts from box 5 and another 7 from box had been removed the bulge (buckle) had been reduced from 8.9 to 2.8 centimetres hoverer the sliding of the plate had become so severe the bolt holes were no longer visible. At this point he buckle began to spread to the adjacent and upper panels, the exact event Ward was there to