56-tonne bridge vanishes without a trace, town blames thieves

The disappearance of a 56-tonne bridge in Russia’s Arctic region has sparked a criminal investigation into the incident. According to Daily Mail, the 75-foot structure made up the central section of a dismantled bridge over the Umba river, in Russia’s Murmansk region.

In May, reports of the bridge’s mysterious disappearance began to circulate on VK – a Russian social media platform. Pictures shared on a VK page on May 16 show a part of the bridge lying in water.

Just ten days later, however, more pictures of the area surfaced on VK. These pictures showed no trace of the bridge, and even the debris in water had vanished. “It was taken away by unknowns. At the bottom, too, there are no large debris. Natural phenomena could not bring down the bridge,” wrote the page where aerial shots of the bridge that disappeared where posted.

Local residents speculate that the bridge was brought down and then stolen by metal thieves. Its disappearance has been reported to Kirovsk Police.

According to the Independent, Kirovsk Prosecutor’s Office confirmed an investigation was underway in the bridge’s disappearance. Police says that thieves may have acted to sell scrap metal, but their identity and the way they operated is still unknown.

NDTV