Criticism of the handling of the bridge collapse in Dresden

Representatives of shipping companies, ports and shipping companies from Germany and the Czech Republic are calling for faster action from the city in view of the consequences of the collapse of an Elbe bridge in Dresden. According to a press release, the tenor of a meeting was that too little attention was being paid to the importance of the river, which is currently closed there, as an international waterway. The administration was only looking at the bridge as a road, the demolition and decisions on further steps for dealing with the rest of the structure were taking too long. "Normal administrative action is not enough," it was said, also referring to the fact that debris has been blocking the federal waterway for almost three months.

The river is a "contractually guaranteed access to the port of Hamburg" for the neighboring country, which the city must take into account despite the disaster, said Saxony's former Prime Minister Stanislaw Tillich. "This is not just a German issue," explained Jiří Aster from the Elbe/Oder Chamber Union, which represents chambers and business associations from Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. The Elbe is part of a European network of inland waterways and the Czech Republic is dependent on the river.

Dresden's White Fleet expects to lose millions

The western traffic line C of the Carola Bridge unexpectedly collapsed on the night of 11 September over a length of around 100 meters. Since then, the rest of the important inner-city artery across the river has been closed and shipping has been interrupted. Dresden's White Fleet is operating downstream and upstream from the closed section with limited capacity, and inland shipping has to take a break. Weiße Flotte Sachsen GmbH put its loss of revenue to date at 2.2 million euros.

According to the town hall, the demolition of the destroyed Bridge C will continue until the end of April 2025. It is unclear when the federal waterway can generally be reopened for shipping traffic under the Carola Bridge - by the end of January, the fairway should at least be restored so that individual ships can pass under it at certain times. Next Wednesday, bridge expert Steffen Marx from TU Dresden, who was commissioned with the analysis, is to present an interim report on the cause of the collapse and the condition of the remaining bridge strands A and B - at a public meeting of the Dresden City Council's construction committee.