Koror–Babeldaob Bridge

The bridge linking Koror to the main island — and a notorious engineering failure.

The Koror–Babeldaob Bridge — usually just the K-B Bridge — is the only road link between Palau's commercial centre and the country's largest island. For anyone driving north on the Compact Road to explore Babeldaob, this is the route.

The cable-stayed bridge that stands today, opened in 2002, is worth pausing at for the long view down the channel of small jungle-covered limestone islets that mark the beginning of the Rock Islands. The bridge replaced an earlier concrete bridge whose famous 1996 collapse is still a touchy subject in Palau and a textbook case in civil engineering schools worldwide.

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A story
The original 1977 K-B Bridge was the longest concrete-girder bridge of its kind in the world — and a disaster. It began sagging almost immediately, was repaired in 1996, and then collapsed catastrophically in September 1996 cutting Koror off from its airport. The current bridge, built by Japan and opened in 2002, is a graceful cable-stayed replacement with a span of 247 metres.