Honkawa Bridge, Road bridge in Naka-ku, Japan.
Honkawa Bridge is a road bridge over the old Ōta River (Honkawa) in Hiroshima, with a separate pedestrian bridge on its upstream side. The current steel girder span rests on piers built in 1897 and repaired since; its girders reuse scrap steel from the former Kōkai Naval Arsenal. A bent road approach remains at the west end.
The bridge was built in 1897 and sustained severe damage during the atomic bomb explosion in August 1945, requiring complete reconstruction. Its rebuilding was part of Hiroshima's broader recovery efforts after the war.
The name Honkawa comes from the river it crosses, the old Ōta River, known locally as Honkawa. The west end retains a streetscape of stone unloading steps (gangi) and mooring posts from its days as a warehouse and merchant quarter. A stone lantern (jōyatō) stands at the southwest corner, and the site of a memorial for Korean atomic bomb victims was once on the northwest side.
The bridge carries a road deck with a separate pedestrian bridge attached on the upstream side. At the west end the street bends at a right angle, a remnant of the old square layout, and the tram stop Dobashi is a short walk west along the street. A stone monument made of stones removed during the 2003 bridge repairs stands at the east end.
The bridge's steel girders were made from scrap material of the former Kure Naval Arsenal, destroyed in the air raids. The piers date from 1897 and survived the 1945 blast, making them hibakusha structures. Below them remain stone walls from Mōri Terumoto's island works.
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