Niigata Japan's Bridges: Route 8 Bridge across the U River (2)

August 2007 (37.3601 Degrees, 138.5498 Degrees) Highway 8 Bridge

 Looking upstream at the Highway 8 Bridge over the U River. Although the bridge had little damage there was a lot of damage all around the bridge. In the photo below we see the statuary at a nearby shop fallen over. There's a geologist who has made a name for himself (a name I can't recall) by calibrating the ground motion during earthquakes from the movement of nearby rocks.

The Shell Gas Station (see the top photo and the photo below) was closed, probably because the underground gas tank began floating to the surface due to liquefaction of the surrounding soil. All of this is evidence that bridges are inherently stable and hard to damage by earthquakes.

Niigata Japan's Bridges: Route 8 Bridge across the U River (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Niigata Japan's Bridges: Route 8 Bridge across the U RIver (1)

August 2007 (37.3601 Degrees, 138.5498 Degrees) Highway 8 Bridge

Continuing up the U River, we came to this simple, two-span, concrete ‘I’ girder bridge on a pier wall and seat-type abutments carrying Highway 8 traffic over the Ugawa. Very little damage, except a little settlement at the approaches, but we did see some evidence of liquefaction including slightly raised manholes and a damaged gas station 100 meters from this bridge.

Niigata Japan's Bridges: Route 8 Bridge across the U River (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.

Niigata Japan's Bridges: Japan Rail Bridges across the U River (2)

August 2007 (37.3619 Degrees, 138.5493 Degrees) Japan Railway Bridges

Another look at the Japan Rail U River Bridges.  The rail crew was just leaving for lunch when we arrived at the site. We inspected the deck, the rail, the embankment, the abutments, the piers, and the bearings but there was no obvious damage so they may have doing routine maintenance.

When we looked at the abutments we found bedding and a mattress similar to what we often see under US bridges.

Niigata Japan's Bridges: Japan Rail Bridges across the U River (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.