Chinka-bashi, which literally means a bridge designed to be underwater during a flood, is ausable in the dry season. In the rainy season or typhoon season, when the water level is high, it can't be used as it is submerged. Compared with a common bridge, it can be built more quickly as well as less expensively, because of shorter bridge girders and shorter total length. And it features a unique external appearance with no parapets. This type of bridge is designed not to catch driftwood with parapets when the entire body is submerged. A lot of driftwood washed away by a torrent tend to destroy a bridge with parapets. Chinka-bashi, amounting to a total of 410 in Japan, can be found across the country though, they are unevenly distributed in Western Japan.
Licensed tour guide, travel consultant,
Masahisa Takaki.
