Ho Chi Minh City is reviewing to replace old iron bridges, built before 1975, which are facing the risk of collapsing at any time due to serious degradation.
Similarly, Quang Tri province and Road Management Area II have been inspecting and repairing damaged bridges to ensure traffic safety.
In particular, there are 11 weak bridges on national highways and provincial roads in the province. The Department of Transport has requested inspection of the erosion of riverbeds, abutments, bridge piers, bridge bearings, bridge girders, expansion joints, joints, etc. to promptly detect any unusual signs and incidents on the bridge in order to have a plan to ensure traffic safety of the bridge project.
These are timely and necessary actions, drawing lessons from the collapse of Phong Chau bridge in Phu Tho. This bridge collapse is a rare incident in the history of Vietnam's bridge and road industry. But rare does not mean it will not happen again.
This also needs to be done by other localities, especially the provinces along the Central region, where this year's storm and flood season is forecast to be very severe.
Check, if any abnormalities are detected, immediate measures must be taken to handle them now or early warnings must be given to road users to prevent them. Do not wait until an incident occurs to find a solution or estimate the cost of building a new bridge. This will be a case of “locking the barn door after the horse has been stolen”.
Another problem, for example in Ho Chi Minh City, some degraded bridges on Le Van Luong Street such as Rach Tom Bridge were approved by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport to be rebuilt with a budget of nearly VND479 billion since 2019, but until now have been stalled due to insufficient funding.
Or the new Rach Doi bridge project was approved in 2016, but has not yet been implemented due to difficulties in balancing capital sources...
This reminds me of the fact that since 2022, voters in Phu Tho province have proposed to build a new bridge to replace Phong Chau bridge. This bridge was built in July 1995 and has undergone many repairs and overhauls; while the traffic of people and vehicles passing through is very frequent...
However, at that time, the Ministry of Transport only "acknowledged the recommendations of voters of Phu Tho province and would prioritize investment when resources were balanced".
Unfortunately, while waiting for resources to be balanced, Phong Chau bridge collapsed in storm number 3, as we have seen.
It is known that public investment budget, from the central to local levels, is always limited. However, investment to repair and replace degraded bridges to ensure traffic and safety of people's lives and property is something that cannot wait to be balanced and should be ranked alongside mandatory spending tasks or urgent, motivating projects!
