London’s Tower Bridge is stuck open causing a nightmare for road users.
The bridge opened up earlier today to allow a ship to pass through, but it then failed to close again with people saying they have been waiting to cross for more than an hour.
City of London Police have urged people to stay away from the area. Posting on Twitter, the force said: “Tower Bridge is currently closed to pedestrians and traffic, due a mechanical fault.
“Mechanics are currently working hard to fix the bridge. Please find alternative routes.”
According to reports on social media, those who were already on the bridge at the time were told via a public address system to find an alternative route.
On Twitter one person wrote: “Tower Bridge opened almost an hour and it hasn’t closed back yet. It looks stuck and the two parts aren’t symmetrical.
Another person wrote: “Yep, Tower Bridge definitely stuck! One side started to come down but the other didn’t.”
While a third added: “Trouble at Tower Bridge – the Bridge is stuck – doh. A little bit of traffic backed up from an hour of this (understatement) including my bus!”
One eyewitness, who had been on the passenger ship at the time, told the Mirror: “We had sailed from Tower Pier this morning out to Barking and on our return we had to wait for the bridge to open for a considerable time.
“The skipper reported to us that there were issues with the bridge opening.
“We eventually sailed through but almost immediately as we cast our eyes back we saw the bridge at a jaunty angle! One bascule was higher than they other!”
It is not the first time this has happened. Back in 2005, it took a whopping 10 hours for the bridge to close after its arms – or bascules – got stuck due to a similar situation as this one.
