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The majority of small and medium-span bridges in Germany are made of prestressed concrete. All bridges are inspected at regular intervals to identify damage or load-bearing deficiencies at an early stage. Nevertheless, on September 11, 2024, the prestressed Carola Bridge in Dresden partially collapsed without prior warning. This article first provides an overview of the bridge inventory in Germany and the normative regulations governing their monitoring. It then presents the special design of the Carola Bridge and its construction. The main part focusses on the search for the causes of the failure and an attempt to reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the collapse. The article concludes with an outlook on issues relating to the future handling of bridges containing prestressing steel that is susceptible to hydrogen induced stress corrosion cracking (SCC).
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