The Luangwa Bridge is the only large bridge and the principal engineering challenge on

Zambia Zambia, officially the Republic of Zambia, is a landlocked country at the crossroads of Central Africa, Central, Southern Africa, Southern and East Africa. It is typically referred to being in South-Central Africa or Southern Africa. It is bor ...

Great East Road The Great East Road is a major road in Zambia and the main route linking its Eastern Province with the rest of the country. It is also the major link between Zambia and Malawi and between Zambia and northern Mozambique.Terracarta: ''Zambia, 2nd ...

, crossing the lower

Luangwa River The Luangwa River is one of the major Tributary, tributaries of the Zambezi River, and one of the four biggest rivers of Zambia. The river generally floods in the rainy season (December to March) and then falls considerably in the dry season. I ...

where it flows from the Luangwa Rift Valley into the

Zambezi The Zambezi (also spelled Zambeze and Zambesi) is the fourth-longest river in Africa, the longest east-flowing river in Africa and the largest flowing into the Indian Ocean from Africa. Its drainage basin covers , slightly less than half of t ...

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between hills or mountains and typically containing a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers or streams over ...

. The river is 250–400 m wide in this area, and though in the dry season it may be confined to a shallow channel meandering across sandbanks, at the end of the rainy season any bridge has to be able to withstand a full-width, deep and fast-moving flood. The Great East Road runs for most of its length on

watershed Watershed may refer to: Hydrology * Drainage divide, the line that separates neighbouring drainage basins * Drainage basin, an area of land where surface water converges (North American usage) Music * Watershed Music Festival, an annual country ...

s at an

elevation The elevation of a geographic location (geography), ''location'' is its height above or below a fixed reference point, most commonly a reference geoid, a mathematical model of the Earth's sea level as an equipotential gravitational equipotenti ...

of around 1000 m, but the river is at an elevation of 390 m at the bottom of the valley. The bridge approaches have to contend with steep rugged slopes and deep ravines covered in forest or thick bush; the area is remote and about 250 km from the nearest city,

Lusaka Lusaka ( ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Zambia. It is one of the fastest-developing cities in southern Africa. Lusaka is in the southern part of the central plateau at an elevation of about . , the city's population was abo ...

. The First Luangwa Bridge was built in Zambia's colonial era in 1932 as a narrow 300 m long wide steel and reinforced concrete deck on concrete piers and columns, financed, like the

Chirundu Bridge The Chirundu Bridge now consists of two road bridges side by side across the Zambezi, Zambezi River between the small town of Chirundu, Zambia, Chirundu, Zambia and the village of Chirundu, Zimbabwe, Chirundu, Zimbabwe. At this location around 6 ...

and

Beit Bridge Beitbridge is a border town in the province of Matabeleland South, Zimbabwe. The name also refers to the border post and bridge spanning the Limpopo River, which forms the political border between South Africa and Zimbabwe. The border on the ...

by the Beit Trust. Its proximity to

Mozambique Mozambique, officially the Republic of Mozambique, is a country located in Southeast Africa bordered by the Indian Ocean to the east, Tanzania to the north, Malawi and Zambia to the northwest, Zimbabwe to the west, and Eswatini and South Afr ...

(about 2 km) and

Rhodesia Rhodesia ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Rhodesia from 1970, was an unrecognised state, unrecognised state in Southern Africa that existed from 1965 to 1979. Rhodesia served as the ''de facto'' Succession of states, successor state to the ...

(60 km), as well as its status as the only access point within the country for Zambia's Eastern Province, makes it strategically vulnerable in any conflict. After Zambia's

independence Independence is a condition of a nation, country, or state, in which residents and population, or some portion thereof, exercise self-government, and usually sovereignty, over its territory. The opposite of independence is the status of ...

in 1964, President Kenneth Kaunda's support for freedom fighters in neighbouring countries led to the bridge being destroyed in revenge. The Second Luangwa Bridge (opened in 1968) was built quickly above the first, with aid from

Britain Britain most often refers to: * Great Britain, a large island comprising the countries of England, Scotland and Wales * The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, a sovereign state in Europe comprising Great Britain and the north-eas ...

which had been the colonial power in Zambia. It is a

cable-stayed bridge A cable-stayed bridge has one or more ''towers'' (or ''pylons''), from which wire rope, cables support the bridge deck. A distinctive feature are the cables or wikt:stay#Etymology 3, stays, which run directly from the tower to the deck, norm ...

designed by Freeman Fox & Partners and built by the Redpath Dorman Long. It has a composite steel-reinforced concrete deck 9.8 m wide, two H-shaped steel pylons 42 m tall on two reinforced concrete piers, and steel cables. The main span is 222 m with approach spans of 40 m each. In 1979 the military of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia destroyed the bridge as well as the Chambeshi road and rail bridges in order to stop the planned invasion of their country by the Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA). After another two decades of use, the bridge was rehabilitated under a project of the National Road Fund Agency funded by Danish aid. As of 2022, there are plans to rehabilitate the bridge.

References

National Road Fund Agency of Zambia website
accessed 18 February 2007 — see the picture gallery for photos of the bridge undergoing repairs.
Gabriel C Banda: ''Zambia Against Apartheid''
Study for ACTSA-JCTR, Lusaka, 2000 (references for sabotage in mid sixties and 1979). * H. C. N. Ridley: “Early History of Road Transport in Northern Rhodesia”, ''The

Northern Rhodesia Journal The ''Northern Rhodesia Journal'', often referred to simply as "NRJ", was produced between 1950 and 1965, by the Northern Rhodesian Government Printer, to record some of the early history of Northern Rhodesia. It is one of the most important sour ...

'', Vol 2 No 5 (1954) — gives date and some details of the first bridge. {{Coord, 14, 58, 33.6, S, 30, 12, 45, E, type:landmark_region:ZM, display=title Bridges in Zambia Bridges completed in 1932 Bridges completed in 1968 Cable-stayed bridges