JAFFNA, Sri Lanka — The Sangupiddy Bridge, which carries the A32 highway across the Jaffna Lagoon and links the Jaffna Peninsula with Mannar, will be closed to all traffic for five days from Wednesday morning for emergency repairs, the Road Development Authority said.
The bridge will close at 8 a.m. on Oct. 7 and reopen at 8 a.m. on Oct. 12, according to a notice issued by the authority's Northern Province office in Vavuniya.
All vehicles will be barred from the bridge during the repairs, the notice said, and motorists and other road users were asked to use alternative routes.
The authority said the bridge could reopen sooner if the work is finished ahead of schedule.
The bridge, officially Bridge No. 18/1, is on the Navatkuli-Karaitivu-Mannar road. President Mahinda Rajapaksa opened it in January 2011 as part of his government's Uthuru Wasanthaya development program for the north, at a reported cost of 1.037 billion rupees. The Sri Lankan contractor Access Engineering built it in about eight months with the British firm Mabey & Johnson, using financing from the British government, which also supplied the steel for the bridge's superstructure.
The 288-meter bridge spans the lagoon between Sangupiddy, near Pooneryn, and Kerathivu, on the Jaffna side. Officials said at the time of its opening that it would shorten the road journey from the south to the peninsula by about 110 kilometers.
The bridge has had structural problems before. In October 2024, less than 14 years after it opened, the authority barred heavy vehicles from crossing it because of severe corrosion in the deck plates. A regional engineer with the authority, T. Niththiyanantham, said at the time that the restriction was needed to prevent further deterioration until repairs could be made.
It was not clear whether this week's closure was related to that corrosion.
