Japan's Bridges: Sendai Airport Railway Viaduct in Miyagi Prefecture

June 2011 (38.155 Degrees, 140.927 Degrees) Sendai Airport Railway Viaduct

A long viaduct, completed in 2007, carries trains between Sendai Station and Sendai Airport.  The airport, which is along the coast, was hit by the March 2011 tsunami. The resulting waves washed away cars and a few airplanes without producing much structural damage to the airport. The viaduct was more seriously damaged and wasn't brought back into service until October.

This photo shows the 150 m long two span steel truss that carries the viaduct over a small river about a mile north of the airport. The many equilateral triangles identify it as a Warren Truss, which was invented in 1848 by James Warren.

We can still see the impact of the tsunami such as the knocked over fence, standing water, and dead plants three months after the tsunami.

Japan's Bridges: Sendai Airport Railway Viaduct in Miyagi Prefecture by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.