THE collapse of a wooden footbridge on a Santander coastal path that killed six people on March 3 was entirely avoidable according to a report by a civil engineer commissioned by a Cantabria judge.
Six student friends aged between 19 and 22 died while another was admitted with serious injuries to hospital.
Jorge Rebanal Lebeña’s report says there were serious failings with the structure due to corrosion and it was not an unforeseeable accident.
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He also pointed to a lack of inspections and maintenance of the structure- erected in 2014- in addition to its ‘weak structural design’.
The support fittings of the secondary and primary beams showed obvious signs of corrosion, which ‘would not have gone unnoticed in a visual inspection under the bridge deck, or on one side of it’, Rebanal Lebeña stated.
The expert said the ultimate cause of the collapse was a support joint failure of the secondary beams attacked to the main beams caused by corrosion,
The failure of a single joint increases the load on other joints and ends up producing a domino effect of joint failure between the secondary beams and the primary beams, which causes the collapse of the walkway.
Jorge Rebanal Lebeña said it was difficult to determine which joint was the first fail but commented that the most likely scenario was that it was the central support fitting on the south beam.
He said the level of corrosion was so severe, that when he picked up part of a joint, it literally fell apart between his fingers.
The civil engineer also pointed to ‘no record of a maintenance plan’ and that maintenance was ‘insufficient’ and inspection work was’ negligent, if it was done at all’-
The repair carried out in July 2024 by the Demarcation of Coasts focused on the railings but no work was carried out on the wooden structure, nor on the fittings, nor on the screws of the structural joints.
Rebanal Lebeña stated: “In short, work was carried out to guarantee the safety to reduce the risk of falling off the side of the walkway but nothing was done to guarantee the structural safety of the bridge.”
He also criticised changes made to the original project plans of 2012 which compromised safety of the structure.
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