City officials partially closed the Los Olivos Bridge, located on Río Tijuana as they inspect and rule out further damage following the 4.6 quake in El Sauzal, Baja California that shook Southern California.
On Friday morning, the westbound expressway to El Florido was closed for inspection.
According to engineer César Ulises López Torres, a specialist in structures and member of the bridge committee and professor at the Technological University of Tijuana, structural deficiencies have already been identified, and they are working on repairs.
According to the expert, the cracks that can be clearly seen on the bridge were already there before Thursday's quake.
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"This is a badly built bridge structure that no longer has the capacity for the type of vehicles that it was designed for," Lopez Torres said. However, "there are some fissures in the stirrups that were not contemplated in the study," which caused its closure.
"'What does this mean?' We have to act fast. The city council is already taking action on the matter and we believe that this is a warning of what will happen. What we don't want is for this city to have a collapse," he said.
According to Municipal Civil Protection, other structures were also reviewed in the area of Río Tijuana Urban Zone, and no other damage was reported.
Credit: ELIGIO HERNÁNDEZ
The quake struck the Agua Blanca fault around 9:31 p.m. on Thursday, along the Agua Blanca fault west-northwest of Ensenada, Mexico; it briefly shook parts of San Diego County, the U.S. Geological Survey and San Diego State University geologist Tom Rockwell said.
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