Ship traffic in Germany river halted amid new damage on Dresden bridge

Demolition work on the collapsed Carola bridge in the eastern German city of Dresden was suspended on Tuesday after new fractures were discovered in the structure, with shipping traffic on the Elbe river also halted again, reported dpa, quoting officials.

An "installed acoustic emission monitoring system" detected steel fractures in two sections of the bridge that were not directly affected by its partial collapse last year, the city administration said.

One of the lanes of the Carola bridge collapsed in September due to stress corrosion cracks caused by moisture in a section of the structure, leading to inland shipping traffic on the affected section of the Elbe being suspended for five months.

The two remaining lanes have been closed to traffic.

Authorities only reopened the passage under the bridge in central Dresden for inland commercial shipping three weeks ago, with free passage in a one-way system planned from Tuesday.

However, the passage has been "completely closed again" since this morning after the measuring system installed to permanently monitor the collapsed bridge signalled movement, said Helko Fröhner, deputy head of the Elbe Waterways and Shipping Office in Dresden.

Authorities are now waiting for an engineering firm to assess whether the bridge will hold and whether ship traffic can be allowed to pass under it, Fröhner said.