Amazon access

We are proud to be playing a part in the construction of a bridge in Peru that will provide road access for the first time to a city on the Amazon – a city whose metropolitan population of almost half a million people has so far relied on boats and aircraft to connect to the outside world.

The Nanay Bridge, or Puente Nanay, is currently being constructed across the Nanay River – one of the Amazon River’s major tributaries – to provide first-time road access to the city of Iquitos in northern Peru. The main river crossing is a cable-stayed structure of length 438 m, and the total length including approach viaducts is 1,941 m, making it the longest bridge in all of Peru.

mageba’s role on the project is multifaceted, supplying a range of bridge bearings and expansion joints:

The project has been characterized by very close collaboration between mageba and the bridge constructors, including especially the designer Pedelta and the contractor CPL, in selecting and designing the ideal solutions from the start of the project. This was no less the case during the temporary closure of the construction site due to the Covid-19 pandemic, when the opportunity was taken to review the remaining work once again in detail, searching for any further optimizations and ensuring seamless delivery and installation.

A project like this has special meaning for us at mageba. It allows us to “live” our company mottos of the past (Bridges linking people – worldwide®) and today (Engineering connections®) in a very real way – linking people by road to the rest of the world for the very first time. And it shows how truly international mageba has become since established in Zurich in 1963 – not only regularly supplying key components for landmark structures in major cities such as New York, but also serving projects in the world’s most remote areas. Wherever high-quality bridge components are required, mageba is there and happy to help. 

Bridge designer: Pedelta
Contractor: Consorcio Puentes de Loreto (CPL)
Owner: Ministerio de Transportes y Comunicaciones de la República del Peru (MTC)

When completed, the new bridge will cross the River Nanay, one of the Amazon’s major tributaries, providing road access for the first time to the city of Iquitos – the largest city in the world that could not yet be reached by road

Design rendering of the bridge’s cable-stayed structure
(© CPL)

Including approach viaducts, the bridge has a total length of almost 2 km, with the main cable-stayed structure having a length of 438 m (© CPL)

Some of the 180 LASTO® BLOCK elastomeric bearings as fabricated for the project

Free-sliding RESTON® SPHERICAL bearings as fabricated for the bridge towers, designed to accommodate +/- 686 mm of movement longitudinally and +/- 15 mm transversely

Assembly of large RESTON® SPHERICAL guided-sliding bearings

Cross-section drawing of a RESTON® SPHERICAL fixed bearing

TENSA® GRIP single gap expansion joints as manufactured at mageba’s factory in Kolkata, India before being shipped to Peru