Bridge at Vroenhoven

The bridge at Vroenhoven is a girder bridge over the Albert Canal near Vroenhoven in the Belgian province of Limburg. The bridge is part of the N79 regional road.

The first bridge at this location was a concrete arch bridge that was built during the construction of the Albert Canal in 1935. It was blown up in 1944 by the retreating German army. Until 1947 there was a temporary bailey bridge to replace it, after which the bridge was rebuilt in its original form in 1947. In 2007 the construction of the new bridge at Vroenhoven started, right next to the then existing old bridge. On January 16, 2009, at 10:38 p.m., the old bridge was blown up with dynamite. The new bridge was commissioned in June 2010. The replacement of the bridge made it possible to widen the bottleneck in the canal so that two ships can now pass simultaneously. This widening was previously not possible because the pillars of the old bridge were too close to each other.

Wikipedia