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(Released 10 April 2019; updated 12 April 2019)
The accident
In the early hours of last Saturday (6) the inland pusher boat ONC II, pushing the bulk barge VÓ MARIA loaded with oil palm waste, struck a bridge spanning the Moju River at Km 48 of the state highway PA-483 causing a 200-metre section from the central decking and four pillars to plunge into the river.
Witnesses said two passing cars were knocked down from the bridge, but since the search began Saturday morning, no vehicles were found and it is unclear how many people would be inside them.
The five crew members of the barge tow apparently escaped unharmed. They were tested negative for alcohol consumption and released after giving statements. The pusher and the barge remain trapped in the bridge’s rubble and part of the cargo fell into the river along with an estimated 3,000 tonnes of debris.
The bridge
Highway PA-483 is part of a road complex called Alça Viária do Pará (Pará Road Ring), which comprises a 74-kilometre single-lane highway with four river bridges that integrate the metropolitan region of the capital Belém to the southeast of the state of Pará. The Alça Viária is the nearest land link between Belém and Barcarena, which is home to the public port of Vila do Conde and three large grain elevators operated by major traders. It is also used to haul commodities produced in the hinterlands of Pará to the ports of Belém and Vila do Conde/Barcarena.
The 868-metre-long, 88-metre-wide bridge that was hit is the third one from Belém and according to the local media, last January an inspection revealed advanced corrosion on the bridge’s pillars, thought the state government ruled out this condition as the effective cause of the collapse.
Cause
Criminal and administrative enquiries have been launched to investigate the cause and circumstances of the accident. The Port Captaincy has already informed that night navigation on that stretch of the river is prohibited and that the barge should not be sailing at all because it had deficiencies to be rectified. The Civil Police reported that the preliminary investigation indicated the barge overloading coupled with the severe current that prevailed at the time was crucial to the loss of steering and the collision with one of the bridge pillars, which have already been hit by other boats before.
Emergency measures
In a press conference, Governor Helder Barbalho confirmed that he imposed a state of emergency in Pará and affirmed his engineering team is already working on the project of a replacement bridge, which would, in principle, be built with a different design (as a cable-stayed bridge) to reduce risk of further collisions by passing boats and barge tows. The works are expected to take about a year to complete and cost about the Brazilian Real equivalent of US$ 26 million.
Mr Barbalho anticipated that a contingency plan is being set in motion to include:
– Installation of ramps for ferries crossing from one end of the collapsed bridge to the other to maintain the traffic on the BR-483 while the bridge is rebuilt;
– Removal of debris from the bottom of the river to resume river traffic;
– Placement of warning signs on the pillars of the remainder bridges in road complex; and
– Increase in the number of barges and ferries crossing the rivers of the region to operate temporarily round the clock, as an alternative to the Alça Viária
Consequences
Most of the soya beans and corn harvested from the fields of Central-West Brazil are shifted to the grain elevators in Barcarena in barges sailing down the Madeira and Tapajós Rivers and the smaller proportion of agriproducts arriving on trucks comes through a different route [see map]. All the bauxite extracted in central Pará is shipped in barges and bulk carriers departing from the river ports of Trombetas and Juruti to the ports of Vila do Conde and Itaqui in Maranhão. Therefore, in principle, the outflow of minerals and grains to the ports of Pará in the mouth of the Amazon River is not expected to be affected.
On the other hand, mobility and supply of fuels and essential goods in and out of Belém metropolitan area are already chaotic and there is an expectation that the transport of consumer products and local commodities in cabotage navigation, particularly in the container trade, might be impacted by a third of the usual port movement.
Bridge over Moju River
++ SITUATION UPDATE 12 April 2019 ++
– Searches for casualties ceased and no vehicle or person was found. Although witnesses said they saw two cars falling into the river, no one was reported missing so far
– Last night, the skipper of the boat was taken into custody, accused of crime against safety of navigation. An arrest warrant was issued against the owner of the company Agregue, the barge operators, but he has not yet been found by the police
– Shipper Biopalma, a subsidiary of Vale Group that produces palm oil in Pará, said in a press release that it does not own the barge and that it sold the goods on FOB basis, where the buyer [Jari Celulose] assumes full responsibility for the cargo carriage. Biopalma is accused of not being licensed to commercialise the oil palm bunches, palm oil wastes typically used as biomass in the papermaking industry
– Pará government commenced proceedings against six parties (cargo and barge interests) seeking security for damages. Yesterday, the Federal Court of Pará issued a injunction freezing BRL 185 million (USD 48 m) in assets of the defendants and ruled that they must, jointly and severally, take measures to re-establish traffic of goods and passengers through the Alça Viária and present a plan for the construction of access ramps for ferries and barges to cross the river along the bridge site, to be completed in 45 days, during which time they must meet transport needs of the local population and also increase the trafficability on alternative routes free of charge
– The state government expects the replacement bridge to be completed by December this year at a cost of about BRL 113 million (USD 29 million) and Governor Helder Barbalho has already requested funds from the federal government to speed up the works. A contractor started moving the debris on the bed of the Moju River and the navigation on that stretch should be resumed in three weeks
– New ferry and boat crossings will start operating next Monday (15), but traffic between Belém and the port terminals of Barcarena should continue to be heavily congested until the crossing along the collapsed bridge is implemented, which may take several weeks to materialise, despite the daily fine of BRL 200,000 (USD 52,000) that will be levied if the crossing is not operational in 45 days, according to the federal court decision
– While no major disruptions are reported in the grain outflow from northern Mato Grosso to the Amazon ports, soya farmers in the northeast of Pará, who haul the oilseed to Barcarena port terminals by road, are suffering the blow because the collapse of the bridge together with the poor conditions of the alternative roads due to heavy rains cause the trucks to take a detour that adds some 1,200 kilometres in the round trip, resulting in delays in the shifting of the commodity and increase in the road freights
Bridge over Moju River
(Photos: Fernando Araújo/Maycon Nunes/Agência Pará)
