The Rappenloch Gorge is a 500 m long gorge in Dornbirn in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg. It is accessible via hiking trails and footbridges and can be walked through in its entirety.
At the 10 May 2011 At 12:48 p.m. there was a massive rockslide that also pulled the Rappenloch Bridge down into the depths. Around 15,000 m³ of rocks fell into the ravine. At the time of the collapse there were no vehicles or people on the bridge or below the rockslide in the ravine.
In the night of Thursday, 19 March 2020 Around 10,000 cubic metres of rock came loose beneath the southeastern abutment of the temporary bridge. The hiking trails were immediately closed and rock clearance in the Rappenloch Gorge was suspended. Three days before the second rockfall, Austria-wide restrictions on going out and opening businesses came into force as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, which is why hiking trails and roads were much less busy than usual at that time. The bridge remained because its abutment above the break-off point was anchored deep in the rock. However, the gorge was closed because the rock was undermined and unstable due to the rock breakout. To avoid its loss, pioneers from the Federal Army, supported by a mobile crane company, and the Dornbirn road maintenance department dismantled the bridge as a precaution on March 25, 2020. Due to the repeated rockfalls in the area of the bridge, a large-scale re-routing of the road and a bridge over the Ache at another location were considered.
At the 25 March 2021 17,000 m³ of the unstable, undermined rock head that formed the south-eastern abutment was blown away using 2.3 tonnes of explosives. This means that a new bridge will now be built on the site of the structure that collapsed in 2011, but with a significantly larger span than before.
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