Is Murmansk cut off?
On 1 June, the bridge of the Murman railway over the Kola River between the rail stations Vykhodnaya and Kola collapsed under the massive weight of rising melt water levels. Two days before, the heavy pressure of the water had damaged one the bridge pillars, causing the tracks to buckle. Then the one-track railway bridge was closed to traffic.
Building rubble tipped from work trains in front of the pillars could not prevent the collapse. Built in 1930, the bridge was renovated in 2014. Rebuilding the bridge could take several months, probably to October 2020. The authorities have initiated criminal proceedings for negligent maintenance.
Most of the freight traffic to the ice-free port of Murmansk north of the polar circle is carried by the Murman railway. And the major share of all goods supplies to the city with its 300,000 inhabitants is also shipped by rail over the 1,448 km long journey from St. Petersburg to Murmansk. While passengers can use busses to get to the trains, there is no efficient alternative for the interrupted railfreight flows.
That's why the Russians are building a six-kilometer bypass which uses a section of the new route to the Lavna coal port. Regular train traffic is scheduled to start again by the end of June.
(J. Streuli)