Tenerife: bridge collapse due to heavy rain

Residents of Tacoronte, a town in northern Tenerife, had been watching the Teobaldo Power bridge fall apart for weeks. Cracks were widening, the road was giving way, and the warnings were loud and clear. Then, on Sunday morning, what everyone feared finally happened.

Right before the eyes of city officials, engineers, and concerned locals inspecting the damage, the bridge’s north side gave out and crumbled into the Granados ravine. What was left behind looked like something out of a disaster film — including a gaping sinkhole.

Power and water outages hit Tacoronte after the bridge collapse, and the fallout wasn’t just visual. Essential services were wiped out in an instant, and dozens of families living on nearby streets woke up to a harsh reality: no electricity, no water. And as the day stretched on, it became clear that a fix wouldn’t come anytime soon.

Although the bridge had officially been closed for two weeks, issues had been reported long before that. “We knew this was going to happen,” said one frustrated resident. “You could see the cracks growing. We kept raising the alarm, but nothing was done. And now this.”

After the collapse, city workers moved quickly to cordon off the area, reinforce barriers, and ensure no vehicles got close. Residents aren’t just wondering when life will get back to normal — they’re asking why this was allowed to happen in the first place, and why repeated warnings were ignored.

Now, the community is left picking up the pieces — literally — while one thing feels certain: this wasn’t an unpredictable disaster. It was a preventable failure that everyone saw coming.