The Øresund Bridge: Connecting Countries Since 1999

It is often said that mankind’s advancements in the sciences and arts are among its few redeeming qualities in an otherwise chaotic world. Innovations and discoveries, foresight in thought, and passion in words make for what you may call the ‘marrow of life’.

One of such creations - one that really makes you stand back in awe - is the Øresund Bridge between Denmark and Sweden.

 

A Bridge Between Nations

The longest combined road-and-rail bridge in Europe, the Øresund (pronounced as 'air-o-soond') Bridge was a joint venture between Denmark and Sweden to connect the two countries. A consortium of Swedish and Danish companies started work on the bridge in 1995. The deadline to complete the project was five years.

Five years to complete a bridge. Piece of cake, eh?

Wait for it.

The aim of the bridge was to connect the southernmost tip of Sweden with Copenhagen, the capital city of Denmark. This meant building a 16 km bridge which would also have a railway track because, you know, one mode of transport wasn’t enough for them.

The First Challenge

The Copenhagen Airport witnesses heavy air traffic, which meant that the bridge couldn’t be high enough to cause aircraft collisions. But it couldn’t be too low to obstruct ships passing underneath either.

The Swedish-Danish consortium came up with a solution – part-bridge, part-tunnel. That way, it would be high enough to allow ships to pass through and while nearing the airport, it would become a tunnel.

But if you have your copy of Dummy’s Guide to Building Bridges handy, you know that you simply can’t turn a bridge into a tunnel in the middle of an ocean.

The Danes and Swedes had an answer for that too. As a base for the tunnel, they’d build an island.

Let me repeat that. They’d build an island in the middle of an ocean to connect a bridge with a tunnel, which would then go on to connect two countries.

See, that’s what happens when you have Vikings for ancestors.

The Next Set of Challenges

Building an island in the middle of an ocean requires stone, lots of it. Precisely speaking, 1.8 billion kilograms of quarried stones, transported by 16 barges and deposited using enough cranes to make for an excellent ‘Yo Mamma’ joke.

This also meant digging through the seabed, collecting Copenhagen Limestone (one of the hardest limestone types out there) and stumbling upon 16 undetonated bombs underneath the ocean, a housewarming gift from World War II.

Other obstacles arrived with malicious grins to the party, like environmental restrictions for the safety of marine life which meant that the Swe-Danes now had to be extra-careful while collecting material from the seabed.

The Oresund Bridge Completed

In the end though, they had this:

 

Yes, that’s the artificial island of Peberholm on the right. It has an 8 km bridge before it, and a 4 km tunnel ahead.

Of course there were other challenges, like cultural and technical gaps between the Danes and Swedes. Their trains ran on opposite sides, for instance. The voltage standards were different too. Every tiny detail needed close collaboration.

But hey, we’re talking about a bunch of guys who built an island to solve a problem. This was playground stuff for them.

So it was that after spending USD 5.7 billion on the project (enough to cover Rwanda’s deficit), finally, on 14th August 1999, the Øresund Bridge was opened to great fanfare and celebration. Yes, within the stipulated deadline. Yes, I know, they are awesome.

And yes, the Øresund Bridge stands today as a marvel of modern human engineering.