For us, bridges are familiar things in daily life, we cross rivers, rivers, lakes, and even the sea through bridges, more convenient for transportation and trade exchanges, China has also built many bridges that shock the world, such as the Hong Kong-Macao Pearl Bridge, the Wufengshan Bridge, the SiduHe Special Bridge and so on. In terms of height and span, China's bridges continue to break world records.
Tips: Bridges refer to structures that are erected on rivers, lakes and seas, so that vehicles and pedestrians can pass smoothly. In order to adapt to the modern rapid development of the transportation industry, bridges are also extended to build buildings that cross mountain streams, bad geology or other transportation needs to make traffic more convenient.
In Honduras abroad, there is also a very famous bridge called the Choluteka Bridge. However, there is nothing special about the structure of the bridge itself, and the reason why it can be famous in the world is a bit special, which is related to the local climate change. Rather, it is famous for a hurricane that occurred in 1998. Interestingly, the story of the bridge has been often used as an image metaphor until now.
Hurricane Mitch
The hurricane is named after Mickey Mouse, the animated character we know as it. But it's not as popular as Mickey Mouse, the second-most deadly Atlantic hurricane on record. In 1998, the hurricane killed more than 11,000 people in Central America, including about 7,000 in Honduras and about 3,800 in Nicaragua, all caused by catastrophic flooding caused by storms. It was the deadliest hurricane in Central American history, and it was more destructive than Hurricane Hollene of 1974.
Tips: Hurricane Mitch was one of the most intense tropical cyclones ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean, with a maximum sustained wind speed of 290 kilometers per hour at the center.
Hurricane Mitch formed on October 22 in the western Caribbean Sea, when climatic conditions were very favorable to it, and it was here that Mitch rapidly strengthened, and according to the criteria for Classifying Hurricane Simpson, it has reached the highest level of 5. Hurricane Mitch gradually weakened as it drifted southwest and then hit Honduras with minimal hurricane intensity.
Afterward, Mickey drifted through Central America, re-strengthened in Campeche Bay, and eventually became a strong tropical storm that hit Florida. It wasn't until November 9 that Hurricane Mitch dissipated. Mickey was the strongest Atlantic hurricane ever observed in October, though it was overtaken by Hurricane Wilma in 2005. In addition, Mickey was the eighth most intense Atlantic hurricane on record, ahead of Hurricane Dean in 2007.
Tips: The people of Honduras are mostly of mixed descent, so most of them are Catholic. In Honduras, music is popular and there are rich mineral resources, including gold, silver, coal, antimony, etc., of which silver reserves account for the first place in China and the United States.
As the deadliest Atlantic hurricane in more than 200 years, Mickey had a catastrophic impact on the area it passed. One of the most affected is Honduras, where the death toll accounts for more than half of the total. According to the Honduran president, Mitch set back Honduras' economic development by about 50 years. The storm damaged 50,000 homes and about 35,000 were completely destroyed, bringing the number of homeless people to 1.5 million, about 20 percent of Honduras' population.
In addition, Mickey also caused $2.005 billion in direct losses, as well as $1.8 billion in indirect losses. Most of the losses were due to the destruction of crops, and Honduras' exports of cash crops in 1999 decreased by 9.4 per cent compared to the previous year. More than 70 per cent of the country's transport infrastructure was damaged, mainly roads and bridges. In addition, it also caused a large area of power outages, and about 70% of the country after the storm fell into the predicament of insufficient water.
Tips: Crops are plants that can be harvested in large quantities or in large areas for profit or rations, such as grains, vegetables, cotton, flax, etc.
In the capital Tegucigalpa, the effects of a major landslide affected three blocks, and floods damaged buildings that were more than 350 years old. After the storm, Honduran officials applied for international aid, which amounted to $2.8 billion in a few years. Nevertheless, the gross domestic product of Honduras began to decline at the end of 1998 and decreased by 1.9 per cent in 1999. After the storm, various diseases broke out, and many residents faced food and water shortages.
Hurricane Mitch brought record-breaking rainfall in Honduras, Guatemala and Nicaragua, with unofficial reports of rainfall as high as 19 centimeters. The death toll from catastrophic flooding spiked, making Mitch the second deadliest Atlantic hurricane in history after Hurricane 1780. By the end of 1998, at least 11,374 people had been killed by Hurricane Mitch and more than 11,000 were missing, and the true death toll could be much higher.
Tips: Flooding is a phenomenon of rapid increase in the amount of sea water in rivers and lakes or rapid rise in water level caused by natural factors such as heavy rain. When there is a heavy rain or snowmelt in the basin to produce runoff, it is collected at the outlet section of the river according to its distance.
In addition, about 2.7 million people across the country were displaced by the hurricane, and the total damage caused by the hurricane is estimated to be about $6 billion.
How the Luteka Bridge became the Bridge of no Name
The protagonist of today's talk about, The Jolutka Bridge, is also one of the "victims" of Hurricane Mitch. In fact, what we now call the Jolutka Bridge is the "New Jolutka Bridge", because in 1937, the United States had already built a Jolutka Bridge, which was a suspension bridge.
However, due to the gradual increase of the local population, the bridge has been unable to meet the needs of people's lives, and more importantly, the suspension bridge cannot withstand the frequent rainstorms in Honduras.
Tips: The Cholutka Bridge is located on the Cholutka River, in Cholutka, Honduras, and is famous for its deviation from the river. The new Cholutka Bridge was built by a Japanese company. The bridge is not structured with suspension cables, but a small span arch bridge with X Yin Liang pin wind, white and straight.
Honduras is a country located between the Gulf of Fonseca and the Caribbean Sea, with a total area of about 112,000 square kilometers. The country's latitude is low, and it is sandwiched between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and more than 75% of the country is mountainous and plateau, so the whole is tropical.
The annual rainfall here is very abundant, and in some places the annual rainfall even exceeds 3000 mm. This climate will also produce an interesting phenomenon in Honduras, that is, from May to July, tropical cyclones hover here for a long time, causing hurricanes and tornadoes, and strong winds will lift the water in rivers and lakes high, and the fish inside will be carried high into the sky and then fall on the shore like rain.
Tips: Pirates of the Caribbean is a series of fantasy adventure films directed by Gore Wimpinski, Rob Marshall, Joe Ajim Ronnie and Espen Sandberg, starring Johnny Depp, Orlando Bloom, Kayla Knightley and others.
Such a climate makes the suspension bridge often subject to storms and needs frequent maintenance, which is very troublesome. So in 1996, Japan's world-renowned bridge company, together with Honduras, planned to rebuild a new Cholutka Bridge. After two years, the bridge was completed in 1998 and a fairly grand opening ceremony was held.
At the ceremony, government officials and leaders of the bridge construction company gave impassioned speeches and said the bridge would never be washed down by torrential rains again. In fact, when Hurricane Mitch came and ravaged all of Honduras, the Cholutka Bridge did stand firmly above the river and was not damaged by the hurricane. However, the bridge became a "nameless bridge" after the hurricane.
Tips: The construction of suspension bridges was invented in the early 19th century, many bridges use this structural method, the scope of application is mainly large-span and extra-large-span road bridges, and today's large-span bridges all use this structure. It is the main form of large-span bridge.
When the hurricane dissipated, people were stunned by the sight before they could sigh at the quality of the Cholutka Bridge: the Cholutka River, which had originally flowed under the bridge, had changed its course and moved to the other side of the bridge. Now only the Cholutka Bridge stands in place, and beneath it is a dry ground of silt and sand, a scene that makes people cry and laugh.
The reason for this is the huge amount of precipitation brought by the hurricane, which washes the land and quicksand around the river bank into the river channel and deposits it in the riverbed. The river sand in the river will gather on the other side of the river bank under the action of the earth's bias force, and under the combined action of these two changes, the river channel gradually begins to shift to the outside of the bridge, and eventually becomes what people see now.
Tips: The rain gauge is a special instrument used to collect precipitation, and is used to measure precipitation in millimeters through the matching rain gauge. It is suitable for meteorological stations, hydrological stations, environmental protection, flood control and drainage, and agriculture, forestry and other relevant departments to measure precipitation.
The most embarrassing thing is that the location of the river after the diversion is exactly next to the Cholutka Bridge, causing the bridge that took two years to build to lose its original role and is known as the "Bridge of Nowhere".
In fact, river diversion is a very common thing, take China's Yellow River as an example, in the past 2,000 years, the Yellow River has undergone 26 diversions. But the difference is that before this, there was no such thing in the world as now, just after the bridge was built, the river "ran". Therefore, this matter has always been talked about.
Tips: River pollution refers to the direct or indirect introduction of materials or energy into the river environment due to human activities, resulting in damage to river biological resources, damage to river water and river environmental quality, and endanger human health.
In 2002, the local government rebuilt the Cholutka Bridge, connected it to the highway and put it back into use.
The meaning of Jolutka Big Joe
Although the Cholutka Bridge has now re-emerged as a bridge to facilitate people's daily life and transportation, and the Cholutka Bridge has become a famous landmark in Honduras, the story of its transformation into a "bridge of nowhere" by a hurricane is still often mentioned as a typical case.
When analysts talk about the Cholutka Bridge today, they ask the question: What is the point of a useless bridge that does not know where to go, even if it has the most advanced construction and technology? Because the story of Jolutka Bridge is so typical, it has even been included in the textbook by Harvard University as a classic case of economics.
Tips: Harvard University has a lofty academic status and extensive influence in literature, medicine, law, business and other fields, and is recognized as one of the top higher education and research institutions in the world today.
This is because when the Cholutka Bridge was rebuilt in 1996, the builders took into account climatic factors, safety factors, quality factors, etc., but never considered that the river would be diverted by a hurricane, causing the Cholutka Bridge to lose its meaning as a bridge, and could only stand alone on the ground, facing the river next to it.
People think that there is a truth behind this, and it is often used as a metaphor for life, that is, when the environment changes, if you can't adapt to such an environment, then you are likely to become the next "Cholutka Bridge". Therefore, when we strive for our goals in life, we must also ensure that we can adapt to the constant changes in our surroundings.
Tips: Safety signs can remind staff to prevent dangers, so as to avoid accidents; when danger occurs, they can instruct people to flee as soon as possible, or instruct people to take correct, effective and effective measures to curb the harm.
For netizens who are now keen to use self-deprecation as a means of entertainment, the Cholutka Bridge has also become a rather popular allusion. Someone made an emoji from a photo of the Cholutka Bridge, labeling the Cholutka Bridge as "project" and the Cholutka River, which has been far from the bridge, as a "project plan" to reflect the opposite of the plan and the purpose.
However, the more direct and realistic lesson of the Cholutka Bridge is actually in bridge construction. Because when we look at the photographs of the Cholutka Bridge, we can see that there is no embankment on both sides of the river flowing from below, which cannot prevent the sediment on the bank of the river from being washed into the river, and when the Cholutka Bridge was built, the length of the bridge was just across the river.
Tips: River embankments, water retaining buildings built along rivers, channels, lakes, coasts or on the edge of flood diversion areas and reclamation areas. The construction of the embankment can resist flooding, block the tide and prevent the waves, protect the safety of residents and industrial and agricultural production in the embankment, and is the first widely adopted flood control engineering measure in the world.
In contrast, china's Yellow River, the bridge across the Yellow River is not only wider than the surface of the Yellow River, but also several times wider. In addition, there are strong piers under the bridge, which are very stable even where there is no river flowing. This is to avoid the diversion of the Yellow River, causing the bridge to lose its original use.
Another reason is that the depth of the Cholutka River is very shallow, the river often changes course, so there are few boats sailing on it, and the height of the bridge hole will naturally not be considered when it is built, and the final Cholutka Bridge will appear short and short, and the structure of the bridge is very simple. In addition to this, there are local economic constraints, and the government does not see the need to spend more manpower and material resources to build such a long bridge.
Tips: The Yellow River Bridge includes: more than a dozen highway railway high-speed rail bridges in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, the first bridge in the upper reaches of the Yellow River - Lanzhou Zhongshan Bridge, Pingyin Yellow River Bridge, Baotou Yellow River Bridge, Yinchuan Yellow River Highway Bridge, etc.
These factors eventually led to the cruel "abandonment" of the Cholutka Bridge by the river after withstanding the hurricane.
brief summary
Hurricane Mitch's blow to the local population was undoubtedly enormous and painful, but after the hurricane, people were able to reflect on a series of philosophies from the story of the Cholutka Bridge and learn from them, which is the wisdom of human wisdom. Human civilization is also constantly making progress in such a reflection again and again, in order to gradually move towards a prosperous and brilliant future.
Tips: The origin of human civilization, about 4.5 million years ago, people and apes began to diverge, producing Rama ancient apes, and later evolved from Rama ancient apes to Australopithecus 2 million years ago, further developing into modern humans.
When we encounter some things in life that we think we are fully prepared but have not been able to get the expected results, we may wish to use the experience of Cholutka Bridge to re-examine ourselves and our surroundings, in addition to those irresistible external factors, is there any reason why we are not well thought out and not prepared? Whether it is for individuals or groups, or even for human beings as a whole, introspection is always the most valuable quality.