This photo shows a prefectural road bridge where work to install temporary water pipes is underway, in the city of Wakayama on Oct. 6, 2021. In the foreground is the collapsed Musota water pipe bridge. (Mainichi/Takao Kitamura)

       WAKAYAMA -- Several parts of a water pipe bridge that collapsed here, cutting off the water supply to some 60,000 households, were fractured due to corrosion, Wakayama's mayor announced on Oct. 6.

       The Wakayama Municipal Government is considering the possibility that suspension parts corroded and fractured due to the sea breeze and bird droppings, causing a section of the Musota water pipe bridge over the Kinokawa River to come crashing down.

       It is believed that the corrosion and fractures were overlooked during inspections, and Mayor Masahiro Obana admitted the checks were inadequate, saying, "If the inspections had been done properly, this could have been prevented.

       The arched bridge is about 550 meters long. About 60 meters of the central part of the bridge, including the water pipes, collapsed at around 3:45 p.m. on Oct. 3.

       The city examined the bridge in detail on Oct. 6 using drones and other equipment, and confirmed that four hollow suspension pipes made of 4-millimeter-thick steel, each having a diameter of about 14 centimeters, were fractured on the northern section of the collapsed area. The fractures occurred above and below connections where reinforcements were attached. A street view image captured by Google Maps last December showed apparent splits in the joints in several places as well.

       On Oct. 6, water had yet to be restored to about 60,000 households accounting for some 138,000 people in the northern part of the city. There is a growing movement to help residents, who are becoming increasingly exhausted, but the burden on the elderly and other people vulnerable to disasters is becoming heavier.

       Yuka Nakamura, the owner of Kofukuyu, a public bathhouse in the southern part of the city that has not been affected by the water outage, said, "Regular users seem to have voluntarily refrained from coming here, and many visitors are new to me."

       On Oct. 4, the bathhouse extended its opening hours and allowed all visitors to take a bath until midnight. There was even a movement in the neighborhood to rent out parking spaces to customers from distant areas without water. "If there are a lot of people, we may have to ask them to wait, but we're happy to do all we can to offer people some healing," said Nakamura.

       A well at Keienji Temple that can be used in times of disaster is seen in the city of Wakayama. (Mainichi/Ryota Hashimoto)

       Kodai Takeura, 18, a first-year student at Wakayama University, who visited the bathhouse on Oct. 5 from an area without water, said, "It was great (to be able to take a bath). I live alone and don't have a lot of opportunities to soak in a tub, so I was able to relax here."

       To alleviate the inconvenience of a lack of water for daily life, the city government has posted information on its website on the locations of "disaster cooperation wells" that can be used free of charge during water outages. Currently, 23 wells are available in areas without a supply. Although the city has obtained permission from the owners of the wells for people to use them, they are not obligated to test the water quality, so officials are urging people not to use the well water for drinking.

       On Oct. 3, the day the water pipe bridge collapsed, several people reportedly came to the well at Keienji Temple in the city to get water even in the middle of the night. Since then, the temple has kept its gates open and the lights turned on even at night. Hosei Hojo, chief priest of the temple, said, "You can bring a polyethylene tank or some other type of container and fill it up anytime you want."

       The city government has also started distributing drinking water in plastic bottles each ranging from 500 milliliters to 2 liters in size at 16 locations in the city. The bottles are said to have been donated by companies and others, and distribution will end once they are all gone.

       In the meantime, there have been moves to prepare for restoration of affected areas, including an announcement that temporarily closed municipal elementary, junior high and high schools would partially reopen from Oct. 7.

       The city government started emergency work on Oct. 6 to temporarily install water pipes on a prefectural road bridge adjacent to the collapsed water pipe bridge, and will resume the water supply on Oct. 8, aiming to eliminate water outages across the whole area by Oct. 9.

       (Japanese original by Satoshi Yamaguchi and Ryota Hashimoto, Wakayama Bureau)

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