Vilnius pontoon bridge

The Vilnius pontoon bridge was a pedestrian pontoon bridge built across the Neris river in Vilnius, Lithuania. It was a seasonal building, meaning it would be assembled every spring and disassembled every winter by soldiers. It was built near the modern-day Mindaugas Bridge. After suffering from an accident in 1975, during which the bridge collapsed, it was never rebuilt again.

History

From 1960 to 1965 simple passenger ferries would transport people from one end to the next. The ferry would be connected to a cable across the river and could utilize the river's stream to float in the wanted direction, without using motorization. It cost 5 kopeks to use the ferry. The urbanization of the city meant that a ferry, which could hold up to twenty people, could not accommodate the growing population. In 1971, the Vilnius Palace of Concerts and Sports was built, furthering the need for an alternative to the Vilnius Green Bridge. A pontoon bridge was seen as a faster and more direct alternative for a larger stream of people that were returning from entertainment events from Žirmūnai to the Vilnius Old Town.

1975 accident

1975 Vilnius pontoon bridge accident
Details
Date	13 April 1975 22:30
Location	Vilnius
Country	Soviet-occupied Lithuania
Incident type	Collapse
Cause	Building not finished in time; no cautionary fences
Statistics
Deaths	4 (believed to be more)
Injured	31 (believed to be more)

The pontoon bridge was laid in the spring of 1975, as was the custom. Although working on the actual structure was scheduled to be from 7 to 11 April, it took much longer than expected due to the river's spring flood and high flow. On 13 April, the Hungarian Syrius ensemble was performing at the Palace of Concerts and Sports, dedicated to the 30th anniversary of Hungary's liberation from Fascism by the USSR. It was their first show advertised in local news. Foreign artists performing inside the Soviet Union was rare, so consequently their concert was attended by people coming not only from Vilnius but from other parts of Lithuania as well. Around 22:00 PM, after the end of the show, a majority of people chose a quicker route back via the Vilnius Cathedral across the pontoon bridge. Due to a lack of cautionary fences around the pontoon bridge, people began climbing on it and throwing away cautionary signs. When a crowd of about 300 people, wearing warm and thick clothes, gathered on the bridge, it detached from one side of the coast. The section of the bridge that had broken off was moved by the stream and individual pontoons began submerging into the river, which was still covered in portions of ice. A rescue operation was not mounted before much later, even so without any medical help or other services. The majority of the crowd was able to survive by holding on to separate portions of the bridge. Reports of missing people amounted the next day. The last corpses were found in early May.

Consequences

The incident occurred not long after the Žasliai railway disaster, and so authorities of the LSSR were hesitant to report it officially. Censored newspapers either delayed the report, or downplayed its consequences. A few civilians, frustrated by the inactivity of the government, wrote a letter of help to a popular newspaper known to sometimes cross the ideological norms in its publications. The newspaper never published about the incident, although the letter was then handed to the prosecutor's office, after which two senior members of the construction team were imprisoned for a couple of years. Officially only four deaths and thirty-one injuries were recorded as a consequence of the incident, although it is believed that due to state censorship the death count is much higher. In an official verdict, 1,963 rubles were given to people who experienced material losses.

The location of the incident does not have a commemorative plaque. The incident was famously mentioned in Ričardas Gavelis's novel Jaunojo žmogaus memuarai.