Completed in 1998, the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge was originally planned as a railway-roadway hybrid—until a ferry d

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Completed in 1998, the Akashi Kaikyō Bridge was originally planned as a railway-roadway hybrid—until a ferry disaster in 1955 claimed 168 lives, prompting a redesign into a purely vehicular bridge. The project brought together over 100 Japanese engineering firms under the Honshu-Shikoku Bridge Authority, combining decades of seismic research and coastal wind modeling.

During construction, the 1995 Great Hanshin Earthquake struck nearby Kobe, killing over 6,000 people. While devastating, the bridge towers endured—with engineers later adjusting the span by nearly a meter due to seismic plate shifts. The structure stands as a global benchmark in earthquake-resistant design and is routinely inspected by robotic crawlers and high-precision drones.

,AkashiKaikyoBridge ,EngineeringMarvel ,JapanInfrastructure

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