A great bridge, but at what cost – By Don Hughes
One of Australia’s worst construction industry disasters killed 35 workers with a further 18 requiring significant periods of hospitalisation. The emotional trauma affected many more and continues today.
Work on the West Gate Bridge began in April 1968 and construction was besieged by problems from the start with project management by competing companies.
Pay, conditions on site, and safety were of great concern to the workers.
Why a Bridge?
Replacing the Fisherman’s Bend to Williamstown punt, and officially opened on 15thNovember 1978, the West Gate Bridge facilitated massive growth to the west by the ever-growing city of Melbourne. It opened the vast industrial and suburban corridor west towards Geelong.
After more than half a century the “West Gate” now gracefully dominates the Melbourne skyline with its imposing height and striking curves. The height allows huge cargo ships to reach the city’s docks. The roadway sits 58 metres above the river and although the overall length is 2.5 km, the main span is 336 metres (two lengths of the Melbourne Cricket Ground playing surface).
Built all those years ago, the bridge forms an iconic backbone to a bustling Melbourne. The cost, however, can be measured in much blood, sweat and tears.
The Disaster
At 11-50am on 15 October 1970, a span from the western side of the bridge collapsed. A catastrophic error sent more than 50 men and 2000 tonnes of concrete and steel some 60 metres below into the swampy western bank at the mouth of the Birrarung (Yarra) River. 35 were killed.
There were survivors. The immediate and ongoing trauma permeated not only them, but also their fellow workers, emergency rescuers and extended families. The disaster rocked the nation, particularly the people of Melbourne and the tight communities of the workers.
Sapper Connection
One of those killed was Victorian sapper, Captain Ian Miller. A gifted and dedicated civil engineer, Ian had enlisted as a soldier in the Citizen Military Forces (CMF) in February 1965. He was a member of 8th Field Squadron based at Ringwood.
Captain Miller was employed by John Holland (Constructions) Pty. Ltd. (JHC) who had been awarded a contract on 10 July 1970 for that section of the bridge. Ian had been on site for just 3 weeks.
He was 39 and lived in Balwyn. Ian had a young family.
Oscar Meyer, an experienced WWII military and civilian engineer, was Chairman of the not-for-profit Lower Yarra Crossing Authority. Oscar was a passionate devotee of the bridge and became the Chairman of the West Gate Bridge Authority successfully steering the completion of the bridge after the tragedy.
John Holland, a WW2 military and civilian engineer, founded the pioneering Australian construction enterprise that assumed the role of contractor not long before the tragedy.
That Fateful Day
On that fateful day, Ian Miller was one of four engineers alongside other workers on the bridge consisting of boilermakers, fitters, ironworkers, riggers, carpenters, and first aid personnel.
Reflecting on the disaster that still haunts those who were there over half a century later, ABC’s Tim Callahan (Sun 11 October 2020) writes.
“Paddy Hanaphy has haunting memories that have stuck with him for 50 years.
It was nearly lunchtime and Paddy was chatting with engineer Ian Miller amid the cables and scaffolding on the West Gate Bridge. Paddy was waiting for the lift to take him back to solid earth, where his mate Pat was ready to give him a ride to the other end of the site. “You take this one, I need to talk to some people”, Miller told him.
The engineer was grappling with some major problems that were delaying the project, so Paddy left him to it and got into the lift.
By getting into the lift when he did, Paddy escaped almost certain death or serious injury, but five decades on, his memories of that day are still clear and painfully persistent.”
The Final Moments
Bill Hitchings in his book “West Gate” summarises the final moments:
“Only yesterday they’d all laughed when they felt the span move. ‘She must be having growing pains’ someone said.
On the morning of 15 October, Ian miller walked to the span he and the men had recently put in place on top of the huge concrete piers on the west side of the river Yarra. His colleague Jack Hindshaw was there. They waved a greeting to each other.
Jack, 42, the resident engineer for the bridge designers, Freeman Fox, and Partners, had been sent out from London. Only a few weeks before, Ian and Jack had assured the men the bridge was safe after a similar bridge at Milford Haven, Wales, had collapsed and killed four men. Now this span was giving trouble.
Ian and Jack walked a few steps towards each other when suddenly the bridge groaned. An eerie pinging noise filled the air. Jack and Ian looked down and saw flakes of rust peeling off the steel. The bolts were turning blue. The bridge fell away beneath their feet.”
Many who died were on their lunch break underneath the first section of the bridge in workers huts. Another section fell on diesel tanks triggering a large explosion. The noise of the impact could be heard 20km away.
Tim Callanan records the final moments.
“Pat Preston was waiting for Paddy at the base of the lift in his small runabout crane when he heard what he thought was the crackling of gunfire but was actually the sound of bolts pinging from the frame of the bridge.
He looked up to see the great mass above him shift and slump into the muddy banks of the Yarra.
Ian Miller, the engineer who’d been chatting just seconds before, landed on the ground a metre from Pat.
A young carpenter, Ross Bigmore, landed just to his left.
They were both dead.
‘I can still see their faces actually’, Pat said.”
A desperate rescue operation ensued. The aftermath rocked Melbourne.
The Royal Commission
A Royal Commission into the tragedy sat for six months. Its findings blamed the design, the construction method and the foolhardy attempts to rectify a construction failure. The report was scathing.
A chain of critical events was attributed to the failure of the bridge. In this case, not just the single action of removing bolts from span 10-11. This had been undertaken to straighten out a buckle caused by the application of kentledge (blocks of concrete or steel employed to provide ballast or counterweight) to overcome difficulties caused by errors in camber.
An extract from “West Gate” by Bill Hitchings explains further factors:
“Primarily the designers of this major bridge, FF&P (Freeman Fox and Partners) failed altogether to give a proper and careful regard to the process of structural design. They failed also to give proper check to the safety of the erection proposals put forward by the original contractors, WSC (World Services and Construction Pty Ltd). In consequence, the margins of safety for the bridge were inadequate during erection.
A secondary cause leading to the disaster was the unusual method proposed by WSC for the erection of spans 10-11 and 14-15. This erection method, if it was to be successful, required more than usual care on the part of the contractor and a consequential responsibility on the consultants to ensure that such care was indeed exercised. Neither contractor, WSC, nor later JHC (John Holland {Constructions} Pty Ltd) appears to have appreciated this need for great care, while the consultants FF & P, failed in their duty to prevent the contractor from using procedures liable to be dangerous”.
Coupled with this, highlights Tim Callanan,
“Riggers on the project prior to 1970 worked without harnesses and welders shielded themselves with material made from asbestos.
If the workers had concerns about safety, they had little option but to strike – an issue raised in the royal commission’s final report, but framed as a criticism of the workers themselves.
‘For their behaviour on the contract’, the report read, ‘the unions and men must bear their share of responsibility for the tragedy that ensued.”
The disaster heralded a new era for much needed improvements in workplace safety and compensation.
The Legacy
The tragedy still haunts those who were there, 50 years on. One of the riggers who survived that day, Robbo Bennett, summarises:
“The West Gate Bridge took 10 years to build at a cost of 37 lives (a further 2 died after the tragedy) and 202 million dollars. It is one of the great bridges of the world, built with the sweat and blood of the working class.
Today, its gentle curve sweeps high over the Yarra River as a lasting monument to the men who died building it. Their memory is honoured annually in a simple ceremony at the foot of Pier 10 each October the 15th.”
Fragments of the bridge are displayed at the Monash University’s Clayton campus as a reminder of the potentially tragic consequences that can result from errors in engineering.
The tragedy paved the way for strengthening occupational health and safety laws in Australian workplaces.
Oscar Meyer was the inspiration for Westgate Park, a fitting natural parkland honouring the blood, sweat and tears, of the builders of the West Gate Bridge.
Bibliography:
Bennett, Robb, West Gate Bridge Legacy, West Gate Bridge Memorial Committee, The Creative Works, https//www.westgatebridge.org/node/120, 2023
Callanan, Tim, West Gate Bridge disaster still haunts the men who were there, 50 years on, ABC News, Sun 11 October 2020
Cameron, I, 1971, Southern Command RAE Newsletter of April 1971, Chief Engineer of Southern Command, Colonel I.D. Cameron, Melbourne, VIC
Hitchings, Bill, 1979, West Gate, Outback Press, Coolah, NSW
Stella M. Barber, 2012, Meyer, Colonel Sir Oscar Gwynne (1910-1981), Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 18, Melbourne University Press
Report of Royal Commission Into the failure of the West Gate Bridge, 1971, Government Printer, Melbourne
Royall, Ian, 8 January 2023, Bridge to Span the Generations, Herald Sun, Melbourne, VIC
Youl, Rob, 1995, Swan Street Sappers, HQ LSF Engineers, Oakleigh VIC
Of Interest:
Australia’s longest road bridge is the Macleay Valley Bridge that spans the flood plain at Frogmore and the Macleay River near Frederickton in northern NSW. This concrete girder bridge it is 3.2 km in length. Its longest span is 34 metres.
Colonel Sir Oscar (O.G.) Meyer KBE, ED, MID was a WW2 veteran and Commander of 6th Engineer Group. He was Colonel Commandant Royal Australian Engineers, Third Military District (1972-1975).
Lieutenant Colonel Sir John (C.V.) Holland AC was a member of “Z” Special Unit and served during WW2 in the Middle East, Greece, and the Pacific.
The passing of two more sappers were reported in the Southern Command RAE Newsletter of April 1971:
Colonel Sir (Fred) Garner Thorpe MC, ED, a WW1 & WW2 veteran was the Director of the Department of Munitions.
Lieutenant Colonel G.W. (Bill) Harker, a WW2 veteran, was Commanding Officer of 3 Field Engineer Regiment, Chief Engineer RAE 3rd Division (1958-60) and a Director at John Holland Constructions. A plaque “The Harker Tree” is located at the Ringwood East Depot.
RAEAV
Royal Australian Engineers Association of Victoria Inc. 