100th malfunction on new Botlek bridge at Rotterdam port

The new Botlek bridge in the Rotterdam port area was hit with its 100th disruption on Friday morning. The bridge lifted at 6:00 a.m. and then refused to go back down. Ships could pass beneath it, but no cars could cross over it. At around 8:00 a.m. the bridge came back down, but then refused to lift again, NOS reports.

On Thursday the Botlek bridge was also closed due to a malfunction in the lock. The failure lasted 7.5 hours, causing long traffic jams.

A spokesperson for Dutch public works department Rijkswaterstaat called the 100th failure a sad milestone, in an reaction to RTV Rijmond. "This is unfortunate, it affects the environment", he said. On Twitter the Rijkswaterstaat said that each malfunction is one too many, but noted that the number faults "decreased sharply" since the bridge opened in July 2015.