The Rappenloch Gorge is an approx. 500 m long gorge in Dornbirn in the Austrian state of Vorarlberg. It is accessed by hiking trails and footbridges and can thus be completely traversed.
On May 10, 2011 at 12:48 p.m. there was a huge rock fall, which also tore the Rappenloch Bridge down with it. About 15,000 m³ of rock fell into the gorge. At the time of the collapse, there were neither vehicles nor people on the bridge, nor below the rock fall mass in the gorge.
In the night of Thursday, March 19, 2020, around 10,000 cubic meters of rock loosened below the southeastern abutment of the temporary bridge. The hiking trails were then immediately closed and the rock clearance in the Rappenloch Gorge suspended.
Three days before the second rock fall, the Austria-wide restrictions on going out and business opening in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic came into force, which is why hiking trails and roads were much less frequented than usual at this time. The bridge remained in place because its abutment, which was attached above the break-off point, was anchored deep in the rock. However, the gorge was closed because the rock was undermined and unstable by the rock eruption. In order to avoid its loss, pioneers of the armed forces supported by a truck crane company and the Dornbirn road maintenance department dismantled the bridge on March 25, 2020 as a precaution. Due to the repeated rockfalls in the area of the bridge, a large-scale realignment of the course of the road and a bridge over the Ache at another point were considered.
On March 25, 2021, 17,000 m³ of the unstable, hollowed-out rock head that formed the southeastern abutment was blasted with 2.3 t of explosives. This means that a new bridge will now be built on the site of the structure that collapsed in 2011, albeit with a significantly larger span than before.