The Kerch bridge, a highly critical route that connects the Russian mainland with the Crimean Peninsula via road and rail, has reopened to road traffic hours after sustaining damage from a powerful explosion on Saturday.
The Crimean bridge is a pair of parallel bridges, one providing access to road traffic via four lanes and the other allowing train movement on two tracks.
Only a single lane out of four is now operational, and traffic is allowed alternately in one direction at a time. Trucks are diverted to the ferry.
The train route would be operational within hours, the officials said. It is unclear if both tracks are in a functional state.
What happened?
According to Russian officials, a truck traveling on the bridge exploded, and fuel tanks on the rail route caught fire. Three people in a vehicle close to the exploded truck have died. The government has launched an investigation.
The Ukrainian government’s official Twitter handle posted ‘Sick burn,’ and the defense department of Ukraine compared the damage to the bridge with the sinking of the guided missile cruiser Moskva and wondered what was next in line.
However, despite expressing jubilance, none took credit for the explosion.
The 19 km long bridge, known as Kerch bridge, opened to traffic in 2018 and is the longest bridge in Europe. A source of pride for Russia, which sees it as a reunification bridge, it is equally disliked by Kyiv, which claims Crimea as an integral part of Ukraine.