Twenty-seven percent of all the bridges that have been inspected in Ukraine are classified as “partially fit for use,” and there are more than 16,000 artificial structures (bridges and overpasses) in the country.

The State Road Agency (Ukravtodor) announced this in a statement, the CFTS portal reports.

According to the statement, President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelenskyi announced the National Bridge Rehabilitation Program at a press conference on May 20. “The program is designed for five years and it should cover 1,385 artificial structures on state and local roads. We plan to begin implementing the program on the first 30 bridges this month,” Ukravtodor’s head Oleksandr Kubrakov said.

As reported earlier, a section of a bridge collapsed while a truck was traveling on it in the village of Oleksiivka (Nikopol district of the Dnipropetrovsk region) on May 20. Representatives of Ukravtodor and its Dnipropetrovsk regional division were sent to the site of the accident.

"The State Commission for Technogenic and Environmental Safety and Emergencies is already developing an action plan for rehabilitation of the structure together with the Dnipropetrovsk regional road agency," Ukravtodor said in the statement.

“According to the agency, the bridge was classified as ‘partially fit for use,’ and only “bridges that are ‘unfit for use’ are worse,” said Oleg Fedorenko, head of Ukravtodor’s Road Maintenance Department, who will coordinate interagency efforts to deal with the aftermath of the accident.

The bridge was built over River Chertomlyk (on the Kropyvnytskyi-Zaporizhia H-23 Highway) in 1955. It has a length of 151.92 meters. 

As the CFTS portal reported, Zelenskyi is looking for money for financing the “Major Bridges” program. The president of Ukraine intends to find funding for a construction program aimed at rehabilitating bridges across the country.