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Edgy Bridge Users Want More Safety Checks From Govt
Anita Rachman | November 28, 2011

A car resting atop the twisted remains of the Mahakam II Bridge in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan. At least four people died, 40 are still missing and more than a dozen others were reported injured when the suspension bridge collapsed on Saturday. (EPA Photo/Dwi Ardianto) A car resting atop the twisted remains of the Mahakam II Bridge in Kutai Kartanegara, East Kalimantan. At least four people died, 40 are still missing and more than a dozen others were reported injured when the suspension bridge collapsed on Saturday. (EPA Photo/Dwi Ardianto)
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The Ministry of Public Works was quick to assure the public on Sunday of the safety of the rest of the country’s bridges, saying the collapse of the Mahakam II Bridge in East Kalimantan was an isolated incident.

Purnomo, a director in the ministry’s infrastructure department, told the Jakarta Globe the ministry was continually checking and monitoring the country’s suspension and cable-supported bridges.

“Kukar [Kutai Kartanegara] is a rare case,” he said, referring to the district where the bridge is located. “People do not have to worry because we regularly check bridges.”

Several reports on Sunday indicated that many people were worried about the state of the bridges they used following the collapse on Saturday of the Mahakam Bridge, which left at least four people dead. Search and rescue teams are still looking for at least 40 people in the waters of the Mahakam River.

In Pontianak, West Kalimantan, for example, people demanded that the municipality limit the number of vehicles allowed to cross the Kapuas Bridge at one time.

There was also anxiety in Palembang, the capital of South Sumatra, where residents expressed worry about the iconic Ampera Bridge.

“After the collapse of the Mahakam Bridge, I’m concerned the same thing could happen with Ampera,” said Yori Halim, a resident of Palembang.

Elsewhere in South Sumatra, people expressed worry about the state of at least six bridges.

In September, the Rp 21.4 billion ($2.4 million) Ulak Kembang Bridge in the province’s Musi Banyuasin district collapsed and killed two people.

But Purnomo said the two cases could not be compared because the bridge in Musi Banyuasin was small and the construction “regular.”

Indonesia has five suspension bridges, including Mahakam II, and six cable-stayed bridges, like Suramadu in Surabaya.

Purnomo said the Rp 4.5 trillion Suramadu Bridge was constantly monitored by a structural health monitoring system connected to a computer. For the rest of the bridges, manual checks are performed three times a year.

“The [structural health monitoring system] is too expensive to be installed on other bridges that only cost tens or hundreds of billions of rupiah. Suramadu cost trillions of rupiah,” Purnomo said.

He promised, however, that the government would intensify its monitoring and checking of bigger bridges.

A structural engineer from Surabaya’s Sepuluh Nopember Institute of Technology (ITS), Priyo Suprobo, said that ideally all large bridges in the country would have the same monitoring system as Suramadu.

“Maintenance is very important,” he said. “It should account for 1 or 2 percent of the total cost per year.”

 

Additional reporting from Antara