Buza Péter: Bridges of the Danube - Our Budapest (Budapest, 1999)

Every bridge was blasted into the Danube in 1945

the work itself. The construction took only slightly more than three-quarters of a year.

The branch bridge connecting the island to the city was dedicated on 19 August, 1900. The total cost reached 2 million crowns. (One-fifth ofthat sum was offered by Palatine Joseph 11 who also attended the ceremonial dedication along with his whole family.)

The full length of the Margaret Bridge, including its branch, is about 670 metres. For nearly half a century, until the completion of the Árpád Bridge, this was the longest bridge in Budapest. It brought the Buda Mountains closer to Pest and spurred the development of such new districts as Rose Hill, where only the lonely tomb of Gül Baba, Father of Roses, had once stood.

The bridge was reliable and worked well. In the 1930s growing traffic justified the first adjustment. Engineers considered the broadening of the bridge a feasible alternative. The “fattening cure” was designed by a Hungarian engineer, Győző Mihailich. From 1935 to 1937 the carriageway was broadened out to the south.

On 4 November, 1944, during the afternoon rush hour the Pest wing of the already undermined bridge suddenly exploded and fell into the Danube. What actually caused the explosion remains unclear. It was 2:20 p.m. on a Saturday afternoon. Vehicles skidded into the water from the collapsed carriageway, and hundreds of drowning people struggled for

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