Hardenberg

The aftermath

Almost as soon as he put the phone down, Gerit Hardenberg heard the low rumbling sound coming across the river. It grew, like the side of a mountain falling on top of him, and then faded into silence.

What Gerit Hardenberg could not hear was the eerie pinging noise that came from the flakes of rust peeling off weathered steel or the jarring screech of metal moving slowly across metal.

Front page news

At about 11:00 am, Ward tried to contact Hindshaw, telling him that things were not going according to plan and that he should come over to the west side as soon as possible. In fact, Peter Crossley, B.A, M.I.C.E, Site Engineer, Freeman Fox and Partners, took Ward’s telephone call and went out to find Hindshaw. The rebolting was going well and the buckle had come out sufficiently to render it possible to make the bolted connection between the transverse diaphragm in box 4 and the inner upper flange plate.