It takes the breadth away. The collapse of the Interstate 35W (I-35W) over the Mississippi river is so total that it resembles as if there has been an earthquake.
The scene of the collapse reminds me of similar destruction caused by the Great Hanshin earthquake or the Kobe earthquake in Japan in January 1995 (see the picture below of the Earthquake Memorial Park built later near the Port of Kobe).
The I-35W was built in 1967, 65 feet high, 500 feet wide, spanning 8 lanes. Reports say about 200,000 vehicles ply on the bridge daily.
As is the case with most such disasters, postmortem has commenced in earnest. In one report by AP it is said that out of about 600,000 bridges across America nearly 75,000 are structurally deficient and need immediate repair.
Engineers have estimated that repairing all of them would cost more than $188 billion. This too takes the breadth away.
Here is a video of the bridge collapse as it happened.
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