Massive floods and violent earthquakes affect bridges

The temporary restrictions on State Highway 1 bridge over the Ashburton River are a nuisance, but only on a small scale compared to the kind of bridge damage that has closed major transportation routes so many times in the past.

The bridge in Ashburton was closed for a few hours on Tuesday last week after one of its piers collapsed during the floods, with light vehicles allowed to return to the main part of the infrastructure late in the day, and some larger vehicles allowed to return from Thursday.

Damaged bridges are not unusual in New Zealand, mostly as a result of flooding, but from time to time large earthquakes have caused significant damage that lead to the long-term closure of major roads.

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Stagnation at Ashburton Bridge after recent floods.

Just 18 months ago, in December 2019, the SH1 bridge over the Rangitata River, in Canterbury, was closed for several days, although that was due to the sheer volume of water that flooded the area when the river overflowed.

Read more: * Several Timaru area bridges need repairs due to flooding * Canterbury floods: Travel warning as motorways and bridges remain closed across the area * Otaki Bridges: working winds on motorways across the Kapiti Coast

As a result of the same heavy rain event, part of the SH6 on the West Coast was closed for about two weeks, as repairs were made on the road.

Newspapers from the late 19th and early 20th centuries cite many accounts of railway bridges being forced to close due to flooding, with travelers having to get off one train, cross the damaged structure, and board another. Mostly, the damage did not appear to have been enough to keep the bridges closed for long.

Stephen Walton/Staff

Aerial footage of the North Canterbury River in flood, taken from a plane that landed in Christchurch on Tuesday.

New Zealand’s largest bridge disaster was far and wide in Tangway, in the center of the North Island, on Christmas Eve 1953.

As recounted by New Zealand History, after the crater lake was breached at nearby Mount Ruapehu, about two million cubic meters of water was released.

“A 6-meter wave containing water, ice, mud and rocks, similar to a tsunami, rushed down the Wangaho River. Sometime between 10.10 and 10.15 p.m., this lahar crashed into the concrete pillars of the Tangiwai Railway Bridge.”

A few minutes later the Wellington-Auckland Express reached the bridge. “When the bridge twisted under its own weight, the engine plunged into the river, taking with it all five second-class chariots. The force of the torrent destroyed four of these chariots—the ones inside had little chance of surviving.”

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The Tangiwai disaster on Christmas Eve 1953 killed 151 people.

Of the 285 people on board the train, 151 died.

Twenty years later in June 1973, Mervyn Farrington, 35, was driving a bus across the SH1 bridge over the Rangitikei River at Bulls, near Palmerston North, after dropping off his last passenger.

Suddenly, he noted, “a large slab of concrete popped up in front of the bus and then it was thrown into the dark.” The bus plunged into the river and Farrington fainted briefly until the shock of the icy water brought him back.

After getting caught briefly by the ankle, he managed to get off the bus and come to some wreckage near the river bank. Two young men who jumped into the river managed to capture Farrington and drag him to the bank.

Pictures of the scene show a missing part of the bridge, another section tilted so that one end is in the water and the other is pointing towards the sky.

Maurice Costello

Part of the bridge over the Rangitiki River in Bulls collapsed in June 1973, causing a bus to fall into the water.

The bridge was the third at the site, according to Engineering New Zealand. The first, built in 1873, was destroyed in the “Great Flood of 1897”, which washed away all the bridges on the Rangitiki River.

In a 1973 incident, one of the bridge piers collapsed after its overhanging foundations were swept away.

“The river was flowing forcefully on the bank and circling between the pier that had collapsed and the bank and back through an old wooden pier from the 1903 bridge. This high flow velocity lowered the layer locally, likely reaching the sand layers at the river bed that would have spread very quickly,” Engineering said. New Zealand “This appears to be the potential breakdown mechanism.”

The Bulls’ failure followed failures on some other bridges around the state’s highway network.

“Powder design in the New Zealand river environment has not been well understood or recognized and a number of research projects have been undertaken, resulting in some new design rules,” New Zealand Engineering said.

All state highway bridges were also surveyed, followed by a major pavement strengthening or early bridge replacement program.

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Part of the bridge over the Waitangituna River was washed away by flood waters in 1982

The Bulls Bridge did not descend during the floods, but the bridge at Wairoa in northern Hawkes Bay certainly did.

As reported in the Gisborne Herald, it only took three seconds for Hurricane Paula to destroy the bridge over the Wirua River in March 1988.

“It was amazing how quickly things went,” the Gisborne Herald quoted Dennis Cave, then a member of Wairwa District Council.

“I ran to apply for a photo, but she keeps up with me.

“Before I could roll the film, the upper side (of the bridge) soared into the air and the north end of the bridge separated with a cracking and roaring sound.

“It swung around downstream toward the side of the Eloiroa, upturned and torn apart.”

Much of this bridge at Wairoa in northern Hawke’s Bay was swept away during Hurricane Bula in March 1988.

The rail line to Gisborne was also cut during Pula, when part of the bridge over the Waipawa River was washed away by floods.

Paula was a great storm. MetService records show that precipitation reached 419 mm in 24 hours at one location, and there was nearly 1,000 mm in several places over the course of four days.

It was another great weather event that brought down the SH6 bridge over the Waiho River, south of Franz Josef, in Westland, in March 2019.

Niwa reported that during the event, a new two-day rain record was set in New Zealand, falling 1,086 mm in a 48-hour period in the Hokitika catchment of the Krupp River. The Haast River has also reached its second highest level in the Roaring Billy since 1969.

Often amid heavy rain, South Westland cut another load in March 1982. It caused some of the worst floods in living memory, Niwa said. During the floods, half of the 150-meter Waitangitawa Bridge was destroyed as the river overflowed its banks and washed away three spans and a pier.

In February 2018, a part of the old wooden pyramid bridge was swept away by a flood across the Mathura River near Riversdale, in Southland. A replacement was built for $4.66 million, and opened in June 2020.

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Part of the Pyramid Bridge collapsed on the Matura River, near Riversdale in the East Southland during floods in February 2018.

There is nothing new about New Zealand’s horrendously devastating weather.

Niwa’s description of the North Island floods in April 1897 is almost biblical. The event ran over five days, during which at least 12 people died.

At Clive in Hawke’s Bay, the water was 2.7 meters deep above the main road and only rooftops were visible in some parts of the city. Every bridge between Napier and Tarawera has been dredged – about halfway along the Napier-Taupo Road.

The National Library has several photographs in its collection of the remains of the Waitangi Railroad Bridge in Clive after rain.

Remarkably, some of the racks that supported the railroad still stand in the river, but many have been swept away, leaving a section of the railroad slung over the water.

Perhaps most strikingly, Niwa’s account of the event includes a report that some Clive residents took refuge in a raised wooden bridge.

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The West Coast Bridge was damaged in 1994

“The bridge was cut off by the rising waters and its location became precarious as the Ngarororo River was completely flooded and threw its massive weight on the wooden stilts,” the report said.

When a bank of shingles opened, the fortified water rushed over and overturned two of the three boats that had gone to rescue those on the bridge, and 10 men died. This bridge withstood the beating and whoever was on it was finally saved.

Earthquakes can also disable many bridges for an extended period of time.

The National Library contains a photograph showing the remains of a collapsed bridge at Havelock North on the Hastings-Havelock Road after the February 1931 Hawke’s Bay earthquake.

A road bridge in Al Warqa’a was also badly damaged in the event, losing two adjacent 18-meter spans at its southern end.

The 7.8-magnitude Kaikoura earthquake, which jumped from a fault to a fault northeast of the South Island in November 2016, caused extensive damage to roads and railways, but bridges in the area weren’t too bad.

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The Glen Alton Bridge over the Clarence River was destroyed in the Kaiko earthquake زلزال

A research paper from the University of Canterbury said that of the 904 bridges affected – 268 on state highways and 636 on local roads – in the Horonoi, Marlborough and Kaikoura districts, only two were severely damaged and reached the life-limit status.

Most bridges have only slight to moderate damage.

The 130-meter Glen Alton Bridge across the Clarence River north of Kaikōura was destroyed in the earthquake. This left about 15 residents and renters of Glen Alton having to drive through a stream to get to and from Clarence.

The Rangitikei South Railway Bridge ran into a problem before it was even built.

One of three replaced a steep and meandering section of the North Island mainline, and work ceased in 1975 after the collapse of the rigging – the temporary structure that halted the bridge during its construction – Te Ara The Encyclopaedia of New Zealand said.

Construction did not begin again until 1979, and the bridge opened in 1981.

George Heard / Stuff

Waiho Bridge in South Westland damaged by flooding in March 2019

While floods, earthquakes, and stray vehicles or trains are the cause of most bridge damage in New Zealand, there are some quirks.

In April 1951 – during the bitter waterfront conflict – a railway bridge near Huntley was blown up with dynamite, most likely by coal miners, according to New Zealand date.

Train drivers were warned in advance and no one was hurt, but coal supplies were severely disrupted. Prime Minister Sidney Holland denounced it as a “notorious act of terrorism”.

Several newspapers reported significant damage to the road bridge over the Rangitata River in Arundel in December 1906. Details vary slightly, but essentially a large part of the bridge was destroyed in a fire that started in the bell at the river bed.

“Geraldine’s fire brigade was sent outside and put out the fire on the south side of the gap…but they could not cross the gap, or move their engine to the north side, and so a message was sent that the Timaru Herald reported on December 28, 1906 that Ashburton Brigade was taking out Wings the work.

“The last brigade had not arrived when Geraldine’s men left for their homes.”

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