On the 5th of January 1975, the city of Hobart was forever changed. 12 people died when a fully laden ship left a yawning gap in the Tasman Bridge, severing the link between the city centre and almost a third of its residents. Marking the 50th anniversary of the disaster, reporter Selina Ross has gone back through the ABC archives to that night, and its aftermath.
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00:00pile on surfaces covered with rubble, twisted lumps of metal and concrete. What have you
00:22found since you've been on the river tonight? Oh, one hell of a mess at the moment. Actually
00:27we've taken in about eight survivors ourselves. A complete span was ripped out of the bridge
00:33by the 11,000 tonne freighter Lake Illawarra, now lying at the bottom of the River Derwent.
00:39Just on the other side we can still see the lights burning of one of the two cars that
00:43was lucky enough to avoid dropping into the river when the bridge collapsed there. That
00:50car was Frank Manley's Monaro. Frank had been driving his family home to Cambridge from
00:56the Huon Valley. The missus and I spotted the white line missing. He hit the brakes
01:05and the car skidded on an angle towards the gap, catching on its edge. The car was like
01:10a seesaw. The car was rocking back and forth like that. When Frank opened the wide driver's
01:17door, most of the space below the opening was the drop to the river below. He had to
01:22swing himself towards the back of the car to escape. It's a scratch on the roof, the
01:27way I had my hand up and the steel watch band was a bit of a scratch on the roof. Murray
01:34Ling was in the other car left hanging over the gap. I must have slowed down pretty dramatically
01:40and a guy just flashed past me and he was only feet in front of me and he just disappeared
01:46and that's when I hit the anchors. Murray Ling stopped about 20 feet back. Alan Townsend
01:54has heard more personal stories than most. He recorded oral histories in 2012 for a major
01:59exhibition. Police officer Phil Butler told Alan how it felt that night, being on the
02:04bridge with its tensioning cable severed. The bridge basically, once it was disconnected
02:09from the other side, had started to sway and he said he could feel it moving probably six
02:14inches either direction under his feet. Twelve people died that night, five in cars that
02:20went over the edge and seven crew members of the Lake Illawarra. The Marine Board of
02:24Inquiry found Captain Boleslaw Pelk guilty of careless navigation. Perhaps emotionally,
02:31this has never seemed an appropriate penalty to many who were affected by the tragedy.
02:37It's now eight months or but a day since the Lake Illawarra crashed into the bridge, leaving
02:42this 130 metre gap which has cut Hobart in half. In 1975, around a third of Hobartians
02:50lived here on the eastern shore but the city's development was very lopsided. All of its
02:55hospitals and most of its schools, businesses and even GPs were over on the other side of
03:00the river. What had been a few minutes drive from Clarence to the city centre turned into
03:07an hour and a half detour over the Bridgewater Bridge. Essential services could use a punt
03:13at Risdon, though it was considered totally inadequate. Some worked out their own alternative
03:18transport. I found out that I could do it quicker this way. How long does it take you?
03:24It took an hour and a quarter from Park Beach. Ferry services were quickly set up but there
03:30was no supervision for school children and wait times were lengthy. A report released
03:36last week revealed that household squabbles had increased to such an extent that some
03:40marriages were being threatened. We need many more ferries and means of getting across than
03:46we've got at the moment. This is quite hopeless. You're going on the ferry with mummy are you?
03:51Would you like to go by yourself? The ferries and their queues became a form of social engagement
03:57with both positive and negative effects. Because they were built as tourism ferries they still
04:02had bars on board so a lot of people would get on the ferry fully intending to go home
04:07and have a few drinks and just not get off the boat. Author Jenny Williams met her future
04:12husband on the ferry. Whilst you were in the queue you were looking, you were looking here
04:17and there, you were looking how the women are dressed, how the men are dressed and Brian
04:22was in front of me. Over time the bridge disaster changed the face of the largely residential
04:27eastern shore. The banks and the big businesses started to buy up old places. The unplanned
04:36bridge closure was used as an opportunity to add a fifth lane using the pedestrian walkway
04:41space. New paths were built projecting outwards on steel cantilevers. On Saturday October the 8th
04:481977 after nearly two and a half years of reconstruction the Tasman Bridge was reopened.
04:54Half a century on a fear of crossing the Tasman Bridge remains for some Hobart residents.
04:59I had nightmares for a while, got to live with it I suppose and I don't go much on going over it.