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Bidge sway set off Cambodian stampede

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Oh my god...351 people stampeded to death. Should make us all pause and be thankful for still having our loved ones with us at this time.
 
I double that Amen. bridgebuster, don't you think we should educate the public how we bust a bridge and what it dose when loaded? How about reviewing code requirement?
 
About a week after the brooklyn Bridge opened there was also a stampede brought about by fear that the bridge was going to collapse; about a dozen people were killed.

This sounds like the same thing: Human nature led to a tragedy. Normally, in a suspension bridge live load is insignificant compared to dead load. However, extreme pedestrian loads can give one the perception that something is wrong. When designing ped bridges AASHTO requires a check of vibrations; it's similar with building design. With a vehicular bridge, we have deflection limits.

As the police chief said, next year they need to do a better job of managing the crowds. Perhaps they need to have a dynamic analysis performed in order to establish what a reasonable pedestrian live load should be in terms of allowable vibration.

I couldn't find any information about the bridge. I imagine it was built in accordance with recognized codes and standards, perhaps French or British.
 
Bridges, be they pedestrian or vehicular, are always going to deflect or sway to some degree.

What's more important, as I see it, is to know this in advance and plan for it. Thus better crowd management is going to go a long way towards mitigating this issue.

With events such as this perhaps having staff monitor the numbers on the bridge is is line. This is similar to the oversight (or supposed oversight) provided for entertainment buildings that are watched for crowds with respect to the fire code, etc.

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This sounds similar to the Millenium bridge sway in London 2000, The engineers showed that when the crowd density reached a critical value, the footfall could coincide with natural bridge sway, and make it worse. They also found that prior to that event, there were six published cases of the same thing happening around the world, and that the structural form of the bridge was not a critical factor. For more on 'Synchronous Lateral Excitation' see and
 
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