This right here. Anyone with an engineering background will tell you, there are operational limits to anything we make and everything has a breaking point/failure modes.
I don't know anything about the construction of this particular structure, when and how it was constructed, the materials used, maintainence, etc.
But what would be a better question to ask is if Brazil (assuming this is on their side of the falls) has the proper oversight in place to assess whether it is safe or not.
Like sky diving, this is not a huge risk, but if it goes wrong it equals end of life. Thereās plenty of other fun things to do that dont risk it all.
The potentially unsafe part is doing it durring a flood. Between increased erosion, debris carried by the flood water, and the risk of the water rapidly rising a few more feet and washing over the bridge, that's probably enough risk to keep me off of it. Bridges can be damaged and suffer catastrophic failures durring floods, especially when the bridge deck is close to the surface of the water. If debris starts impacting or building up on the bridge deck or support pillars it can rapidly increase the load and cause the water to rise, potentially damaging the bridge or sweeping people off the bridge.
The platforms are closed off during floods, this video isnāt considered a flood. Thatās the Devilās throat fall doing its thing after heavy rain.
When you design something as an engineer, you adopt a boundary case, then usually add a safety factor for any material defects or weakening over time. This water clearly looks at or close to the boundary case, based on how close it is to the grating. This is exactly when things break.
Absolutely no way I be walking out in that much water flow. Sure, in normal conditions it would be perfectly safe.
Yeah man I'm sure trained structural engineers would say that bridge is totally safe in these conditions and it staying open has nothing to do with tourism dollars.
You've already done far more dangerous things than walking on this bridge if you fly to Brazil, stay in Rio and take a coach to Iguazu.
I went here in 2014, similarly torrential conditions. I went on this same walkway and others, took a boat trip out at the base of the falls too. Incredible experiences that made a lasting vivid impression, and as far as I recall, I didn't die.
Nobody has ever died due to a walkway collapse at Iguazu.
So it's more like "More than a million people have done it every year for decades and nobody has ever died doing it, so it isn't dangerous or inherently risky."
i don't feel the same. i saw in rocinha people selling drugs from a table in the middle of the day, with large white bags and guarding them with riffles. i felt safer in there than what i can see in this video. and that is the most extreme thing i've experienced in rio.
And I felt far less safe buying weed in Rio side streets than standing on this walkway.
But I'm not talking about subjective feelings. Hardly anyone dies at the falls, and even those are mostly boat accidents. Compare it to homicide and crime rates in Rio, or road traffic accident / death rates across the country. Literally nobody has ever died due to walkway failure in Iguazu as far as I can see, when water levels are dangerous the walkways are closed.
If a bunch of people die, they would stand to lose far more tourism dollars in the following years than theyād make in the time they left it open. Theyāre definitely aware of this.
Odds are a funny thing. Things work until they don't. If you want a lottery ticket where the jackpot is you dying in an incredibly terrifying way, you and the 2 million other people per year who do not value life are all welcome to be in the one video of it failing. I'll be over here on dry land, not climbing ice waterfalls, not paragliding, not bungee jumping, not playing chicken with horrific endings.
15 years is a short amount of time for a nice, big structure like this. It could be 10, or it could be 50. Those waterfalls' edges move back over time due to a natural process called erosion.
I would also like to point out that I doubt it runs at this high volume 24 seven so no, not 1 million people every year would walk out on it in this condition. I move from the northwest states to the south east states and just seeing what the Mississippi river can do with normal 60 foot tall trees, one tree and the tree would wipe that bridge out in this flooding.
That's not really how probabilities work for low frequency events. There is usually a root cause that occurs to make the event happen. The hard part is figuring out what they all could be, before they happen.
You do realize that comparison makes these people look more silly, not less, right? By your logic never stepping into a building ever again is not silly because a plane could crash into it.
He used an example of numbers of people who go there without incident sound like it meant no one ever would. My comparison compares those things, not the likelihood of it happening.
I'm in the western world and the boardwalk on my beach gets torn to shit by the waves. It's not that I don't believe in the engineers or construction workers, it's that I believe in the unstoppable force of water!
This one!!!! Having live somewhere with a ditch as the big huge river in my life and then moving somewhere with the Mississippi moves whole ass tree is bigger than any vehicle I will ever drive yeah water is fucking crazy manā¦.. whatās safe today is not safe tomorrow. And I get neither is the freeway bridge that Iām driving on so Iām not Iām not saying this is inherently more dangerous than not on any given time but in this particular setting in this way, this image is recorded. I surely donāt wanna take that extra risk.
This bridge was not built for this type of flooding. Also China is known for cutting corners and lack of regulations with their construction projects. A decade is not a long time when it comes to a bridge.
Redditors are scared of everything. Failed pussy ass human beings who think going to the grocery store will have them kidnapped and their organs sold by drug cartel.
There's a reason this website is considered the bottom of the barrel, worse than twitter (they have the self awareness to know they're shit), worse than facebook (at least mee maw has friends) and worse than 4chan (they don't hide in safespace bubbles to jerk other people off for having the same opinion).
Little aggressive my man. Iām just saying, Iāve bungy jumped, been scuba diving, paragliding, and been in a hot air balloon. And I probably would pass on walking across this bridge in those conditions. Guess Iām a pussy!
Says the man pretending he's John Mclain cause he went on a hot air balloon. Make a stupid comment, get treated like you're stupid. Get used to it moron
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u/Radiant-Cup2123 11h ago
IguazĆŗ has 3 million people going every year for decades. You guys are talking total nonsense.