The court began hearing the Trojan footbridge. Prague wants 8.2 million from the defendants – ČT24 – Czech Television
The indictment alleges that the design of the footbridge and its construction were accompanied by errors that led to corrosion damage to the steel ropes. According to the public prosecutor, a bad evaluation of the condition of the footbridge and improperly performed repairs contributed to the collapse.
The indictment accuses Stráský, among other things, that he did not take into account the influence of wind and temperature in the calculations and that he did not properly perform author’s supervision, which leads to poor quality work.
According to the indictment, Semecký then knew about the bad to emergency condition of the footbridge, because he had several dozen records and assessments at his disposal, which drew attention to the problem. The public prosecutor also accuses him of failing to comply with the ban on the use of salt spray in the maintenance of the footbridge.
Semecký and Stráský reject the guilt
The man objected. “A strict ban has been issued on all maintenance companies that they can only use sand or fine gravel. It was not the responsibility of TSK staff to control the implementation of the measures, “said Semecký of the District Court for Prague 7, who began working for TSK in 1963.
“I am not aware of any negligence in my activities,” he added. “During my tenure, a number of inspections were carried out on the footbridge in question. During the stress tests, no significant deviations from the designed condition were found, “he said.
He added that in 2016 he called on the TSK investment department to ensure the preparation for the replacement of the footbridge with a new one, within two years of this urgency. According to him, ordering the closure of the footbridge was not within his competence.
“If I had something in my hand that meant closing, it was my duty to call on the relevant state administration to close the footbridge or take appropriate measures.” He added that he had no such indications.
Take a look at the report from the day the footbridge crashed:
The accused author of the Troja footbridge, Stráský, testified that in the year it collapsed, he was calling for its construction to be repaired. According to him, the footbridge was damaged by salt spray, unprofessional paint and repairs, which no one informed about. He also objected to the accusation’s claim that, as a designer, he was to perform author’s supervision on the construction site.
Stráský stated that in 2017 he was approached by the Institute of Planning and Development of the Capital City of Prague with a question whether the structure could not be repaired. “I visited her and I was terrified of what I saw,” he said in court. “The footbridge I designed in 1984 is not the one that collapsed in 2017,” he added.