On 6 September 2016, the railway bridge over the

Nzi River The Nzi River or N'zi River is a river in Ivory Coast. It is a tributary of the Bandama River. On 6 September 2016, the railway bridge over this river near Dimbokro Dimbokro is a town in south-central Ivory Coast. It is the seat of both Lacs Di ...

collapsed, cutting the rail link between

Ivory Coast Ivory Coast, also known as Côte d'Ivoire, officially the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, is a country on the southern coast of West Africa. Its capital is Yamoussoukro, in the centre of the country, while its largest city and economic centre is ...

and

Burkina Faso Burkina Faso (, ; , ff, 𞤄𞤵𞤪𞤳𞤭𞤲𞤢 𞤊𞤢𞤧𞤮, italic=no) is a landlocked country in West Africa with an area of , bordered by Mali to the northwest, Niger to the northeast, Benin to the southeast, Togo and Ghana to the ...

. Partial services on the line resumed on 10 September, with repairs estimated to take about two weeks.

Background

The Nzi River Bridge is a steel railway bridge over the Nzi River near

Dimbokro Dimbokro is a town in south-central Ivory Coast. It is the seat of both Lacs District and N'Zi Region. It is also the seat of and a sub-prefecture of Dimbokro Department. Dimbokro is also a commune. The town is located along the river N'Zi, ap ...

in Ivory Coast, built in 1910. It carries the single-track railway between

Abidjan Abidjan ( , ; N'Ko script, N’ko: ߊߓߌߖߊ߲߬) is the economic capital of the Ivory Coast. As of the Demographics of Ivory Coast, 2021 census, Abidjan's population was 6.3 million, which is 21.5 percent of overall population of the country, ...

and

Ouagadougou Ouagadougou ( , , ) is the capital and largest city of Burkina Faso and the administrative, communications, cultural, and economic centre of the nation. It is also the country's largest city, with a population of 2,415,266 in 2019. The city's n ...

and also a foot bridge, and consists of a single span crossing the river flanked by smaller spans crossing the

floodplain A floodplain or flood plain or bottomlands is an area of land adjacent to a river which stretches from the banks of its channel to the base of the enclosing valley walls, and which experiences flooding during periods of high discharge.Goudi ...

. According to local residents, it was rusty and in a poor state of repair.

Agence France-Presse Agence France-Presse (AFP) is a French international news agency headquartered in Paris, France. Founded in 1835 as Havas, it is the world's oldest news agency. AFP has regional headquarters in Nicosia, Montevideo, Hong Kong and Washington, D.C ...

"Bridge collapse halts Ivory Coast-Burkina rail traffic"
''

Times LIVE ''TimesLIVE'' is a South African online newspaper that started as ''The Times'' daily newspaper. ''The Times'' print version was an offshoot of ''Sunday Times'', to whose subscribers it was delivered gratis; non-subscribers paid R2.50 per edi ...

'', 8 September 2016; also a
"Bridge collapse halts I.Coast-Burkina rail traffic"
'' The Daily Star'', 8 September 2016
"Bridge collapse halts I. Coast-Burkina rail traffic"
''

Dawn Dawn is the time that marks the beginning of twilight before sunrise. It is recognized by the appearance of indirect sunlight being scattered in Earth's atmosphere, when the centre of the Sun's disc has reached 18° below the observer's horizo ...

'', 9 September 2016."Key rail bridge linking Ivory Coast-Burkina Faso collapse"

Africanews Africanews is a French multilingual news network, formerly headquartered in Pointe-Noire, Republic of the Congo. Budget concerns caused by the coronavirus forced the channel to permanently shift operations to a small newsroom at the headquarter ...

, 8 September 2016; video (1 minute 23 seconds) also on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

a
"Key rail bridge linking Ivory Coast-Burkina Faso collapse"
8 September 2016. The rail link is operated by

Sitarail Sitarail is a private company that has the concession to operate railway lines formerly operated by the government. Countries include: * Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso * Cameroon Sitarail is part of the Bolloré group. Timeline 2016 * Operati ...

Collapse

On 6 September 2016, one of the approach spans collapsed while a two-engined goods train was attempting to leave the bridge in the direction of Burkina Faso. The train consisted of 20 or 21 wagons with a load of more than 1000 tons, which remained on the bridge.thiam
"Collapse of the metal bridge Dimbokro, the rail link Abidjan-Ouagadougou interrupted"
Islam et Infos.net, 7 September 2016. The accident cut the rail link between the two countries, which is important to their economies."Rail Services Suspended due to Collapsed Bridge between Ivory Coast and Burkina Faso"
''

Railways Africa ''Railways Africa'' is a publication covering railways in Africa. It is published 6 times per year in print and weekly online. See also * List of railroad-related periodicals A ''list'' is any set of items in a row. List or lists may also re ...

'', 16 September 2016. While most reports say that no-one was injured, one report says that the two train drivers were injured. The two engines are numbered CC 22105 and CC 22008. They are class

GT22LC-2 The EMD GT22 Series were first introduced in 1972 after the rise in popularity of six axle locomotives. The GT series now carried a turbocharger that increased the horsepower depending on customer input. The GT series also utilized six axle HTC ...

from GMD and have a Co-Co wheel arrangement with 6 axles (12 wheels). In addition to interrupting railway traffic, the accident destroyed the pedestrian connection for local residents, who started to use small boats to ferry goods and people across the river. One local source suggested that the bridge had been destabilised when the arm of a

bulldozer A bulldozer or dozer (also called a crawler) is a large, motorized machine equipped with a metal blade to the front for pushing material: soil, sand, snow, rubble, or rock during construction work. It travels most commonly on continuous track ...

hit it, and that this may have caused the accident.

Repairs

Repairs were expected to cost £400 million and take two weeks to complete. By 14 September, the two locomotives had been lifted by heavy-duty cranes onto a road trailer. Temporary fill was put in place, armoured with

gabion A gabion (from Italian ''gabbione'' meaning "big cage"; from Italian ''gabbia'' and Latin ''cavea'' meaning "cage") is a cage, cylinder or box filled with rocks, concrete, or sometimes sand and soil for use in civil engineering, road building, ...

s, and the damaged span removed. Partial services on the line resumed on 10 September, with

container A container is any receptacle or enclosure for holding a product used in storage, packaging, and transportation, including shipping. Things kept inside of a container are protected on several sides by being inside of its structure. The term ...

goods being transported by a combination of rail and

lorry A truck or lorry is a motor vehicle designed to transport cargo, carry specialized payloads, or perform other utilitarian work. Trucks vary greatly in size, power, and configuration, but the vast majority feature body-on-frame construction ...

."Pont ferroviaire de Dimbokro: reprise partielle des circulations, en marge des travaux de réhabilitation"
Abidjan.net, 16 September 2016 .

References

{{coord, 06, 38, 13, N, 04, 42, 22, W, display=title 2016 in Ivory Coast Derailments in Ivory Coast Transport disasters in 2016 2016 disasters in Africa Nzi