DONA ANA RAILWAY BRIDGE

Located 58 km west of Caia, this 3,750 m long structure is the road bridge spanning the Zambezi River and linking the south (town of Sena) to the north of the country (town of Mutarara). There was one here as early as the ^12th century according to some Arabic writings. In 1922, the Trans-Zambezia Railway Company completed the line from Beira to Murracca on the Zambezi River, which faces Chindio on the road to Malawi. The efficiency of the ferry service depended on the depth of the Zambezi River in different seasons. In the midst of the industrial revolution, the British Crown decided to have the bridge built by the Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company, based on the project of a Portuguese engineer, Edgar Cardoso. After long works from 1930 to 1935, this magnificent steel bridge spanned the Zambezi to allow trains to connect Malawi to the port of Beira, via coal mines. At 3.67 km long, it was the largest railway bridge in Africa. Destroyed during the civil war in 1980, it was rehabilitated in 1995 as a road bridge with U.S. aid. Due to its narrow width, traffic was only allowed in one direction, alternately. It was permanently closed to traffic in 2006 and reopened in 2009, but only for rail traffic. Between 2006 and 2009, a system of ferries replaced the bridge - a real chaos with endless queues that lasted four years - to travel between the north and south of the country, until the inauguration of the new Armando Guebuza road bridge in 2009.