Chilean engineers have been left red faced by a delay in the grand opening of the country's first-ever drawbridge - after they discovered a major part was installed upside down.
The $30million Cau Cau bridge was supposed to open this month as an instant landmark connecting Valdivia, a coastal city in the south of Chile, with the adjacent Teja Island.
But no one will be travelling across for a while, after builders realised at least one traffic deck had been installed upside down.
It's a national embarrassment for the prosperous South American country.
But its president, Sebastián Piñera, is blaming Spanish developers for the mistake.
'It can be fixed, ... and it will be fixed by the company that made the mistake,' fumed President Piñera.
Public Works Minister Loreto Silva added: 'The only responsible party is the builder. We are going to make them answer for this'
The bridge has ended up a laughing stock among Chilean social media users, who are wondering how construction workers managed to mess up something as seemingly clear as up and down.
One wag tweeted a scrawly child's picture of a bridge, rendered in coloured pencil, with the quip: 'Leak of the installation plans for the Cau Cau bridge in Valdivia.'
The mistake emerged when inspectors getting ready for opening day found that either one or two of the traffic decks were installed backwards, authorities said.
Azvi, the Spanish infrastructure company behind the bridge development, did not immediately comment. A new opening date has not been announced.
Valdivia, which is 520 miles south of Chile's sprawling capital Santiago, is home to about 125,000 people.
据英国《每日邮报》网站1月9日报道，智利工程师发现即将启用的该国首座吊桥的一边桥面居然是上下颠倒的，由此引发的推迟交付让他们感到非常尴尬。
这座价值3000万美金的吊桥原计划本月作为连接智利南部海滨城市瓦尔迪维亚的地标建筑正式启用。但是建筑师们发现至少其中一边桥面的安装完全上下颠倒后，于是大桥在短期内无法向公众开放。
这场事故让智利这个正在蓬勃发展的南美国家蒙羞。智利总统塞巴斯蒂安·皮涅拉将这个错误归咎于西班牙开发商， 他愤怒的说：“这个问题可以被修补……而且它将被犯了这个错误的公司实施修补。”
智利公共作业部长Loreto Silva说：“唯一应该对此事负责的人就是建桥的人。我们将确保他们会给出合适的答案。”
这座吊桥也成为了智利社交网站用户们的笑料。他们说无法理解这些建筑工人们到底是出了什么乱子，以至于桥明显安装反了，而这些施工的人却没有察觉到。一个网友很幽默的将一个小朋友的铅笔画放在自己的推特账户中并且说：“吊桥的安装计划就是这么泄露的”。另外一张贴图是一座小桥在一个度假村的水池的上面，评论说“把吊桥做反了的人成为了这个项目的中标人。”
作为工程的开发商，西班牙建筑公司Azvi并没有第一时间对这个问题进行回复，也没有公布新的大桥开通日期。
