Accidents Due To Culvert Failures
Culverts fail due to corrosion of the materials they are made from, or erosion of the soil around or under them. If the failure is sudden and catastrophic, it can result in injury or loss of life.
Sudden road collapses are often at poorly designed culvert crossing sites. Water passing through undersized culverts will scour away the surrounding soil over time. This can cause a sudden failure during medium sized rain events. There are more than 5,000,000 culverts currently in use in the United States alone. Continued inspection, maintenance, and replacement of these structures is crucial for infrastructure and safety.
Accidents due to culverts can also occur if a flood overwhelms it, such as with the Jacobs Creek Flood of 2003, or disrupts the road or railway above it, such as with the Bethungra accident of 1885, which killed seven people.
Soil and sand carried through a culvert can wear away the galvanizing of a steel culvert, allowing it to corrode and eventually collapse, disrupting the road or railway above it. This happened at a culvert near Gosford, New South Wales in 2007, killing five.
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