A bridge that has carried traffic over a busy motorway for half a century has been torn down in less than 48 hours. And you can see the remarkable demolition work in a one-minute time-lapse video by National Highways at the top of this article.
Work to tear down the bridge which is being replaced by a new and improved structure at junction 10 for Walsall in the West Midlands finished in the early hours of Monday (May 9). The £78m work to tackle ongoing bottleneck problems was finished four hours ahead of schedule, National Highways said.
The junction was closed from Friday night until 1.30am on Monday for the south bridge to be taken down and the video shows machines 'nibbling' away at the bridge. The existing north bridge is due to be demolished within a few weeks.
The two new bridges were built alongside the existing ones and will double the number of traffic lanes around the junction from two to four.
National Highways Project Manager Annie Hyett said: "Demolishing a bridge of this size is a complex operation but everything went exactly to plan and we were delighted that we were able to get the motorway open several hours earlier than planned.
"A big thank-you to everyone who was able to avoid the area where possible as it helped us reduce the queues of traffic and delays to journeys. We appreciate that closing the motorway does cause some inconvenience and only do so when we absolutely necessary to protect our workforce and road users."
