The crash of a drifting ship forces traffic to be cut off a bridge in Rio de Janeiro

The collision of a drifting merchant ship forced the closure of traffic on the bridge that connects the city of Rio de Janeiro (southeast of Brazil) with neighboring Niterói, causing significant traffic jams throughout the metropolitan area.

“Both directions of the Rio-Niteroi bridge are cut off due to an accident with a ship, the teams are already working to resolve the situation,” the company Ecoponte, administrator of the infrastructure, reported on Twitter.

Videos recorded by motorists and collected by the local press show the moment in which the large ship hit the bridge, which according to reports, came to move due to the crash.

The administrator of the bridge stressed that the engineering teams are evaluating the situation of the infrastructure and that at the moment “there is no forecast for the opening of the bridge.”

At the moment there is no information about injuries in the accident, and two tugboats are already trying to rescue the boat.

The bridge between Rio and Niterói crosses Guanabara Bay, is 14 kilometers long and has eight lanes, four in each direction.

Some 150,000 vehicles cross it every day, so the impact on the mobility of the city is enormous.

The company CCR Barcas, which manages the boats that transport passengers in the bay, the only alternative to the bridge, reported that it will reinforce the service due to the increase in demand.

With information from Sputnik

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