Foz do Iguaçu Waterfall Walkway Withstands Floods for Over 30 Years

The project, started in 1992, required a temporary diversion of the Iguaçu River and the drying of part of the riverbed to allow construction. The design fixed the pillars directly into the bedrock using a root-pile technique, which involves drilling into the rock, inserting steel elements and injecting cement under pressure, ensuring anchorage against large forces.

During execution, at least two floods washed away equipment, but the concrete portion remained intact, as reported by engineer Márcio Marcon to G1. Foundations were carried out by crews of 20 to 30 workers who drilled the rock and installed the root piles, a method also used in other projects in Foz do Iguaçu, according to Vinicius Lorenzi, engineering director at Fungeo.

Urbia Cataratas monitors the structure with topographic prisms and conducts annual measurements. Since monitoring began, no displacements—nor even millimetric ones—have been detected, says André Franzini, sustainability manager of the concessionaire. Reopening the walkway requires a structural engineer’s report and a river flow below 8 million liters per second; the structure already withstood, in 2014, 46 million liters of water per second.

Source: https://100fronteiras.com/turismo/noticia/entenda-como-a-passarela-das-cataratas-do-iguacu-resiste-as-cheias-ha-mais-de-30-anos