New Bridge Near Pantu

This bridge is still new, but the Joint between the Bridge Structure and road embankment is opening up! Why ?

This is because the site is a peat swamp; the ground beneath is thick peat which cannot take the heavy loading of earth-fill embankment. The bridge structure has no problem as it sits on pile foundation carrying the load to the hard soil or rock below. The peat compresses a lot on loading. Generally there is a transition slab, but due to large settlement, this slab rotates and therefore causing the gap.

This is a common engineering problem on peat swamp which Sarawak is famous for. It is expensive to solve this problem. Peat has to be removed or the road has to provide pile foundation until better soil conditions are encountered. Fund is not easily available.