Bridge Collapse at Gradiska Border Crossing Causes Major Traffic Delays A routine border crossing turned into a continental choke point overnight when part of the Sava bridge structure at Gradiška suddenly gave way, forcing an immediate shutdown of one of the busiest road links between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia. No one was hurt, but regional traffic was thrown into chaos.

In the early hours, local outlets reported that “part of the bridge at the Gradiska border crossing between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Croatia collapsed, crossing closed,” with the fence and a section of the structure failing under still “undetermined circumstances.” The closure instantly halted all vehicle and pedestrian movement.

As Croatian road authorities reacted, Hrvatske ceste moved to “temporary closure” of the DC5 state road over the collapsed bridge, pushing traffic onto alternative routes. The result was predictable and brutal: “Chaos at border crossings after bridge collapse near Gradiska border crossing: Trucks wait up to 16 hours,” one outlet summed up.

By late morning, the shockwave had spread across the network. The “extremely busy” Gradiška crossing was fully shut “because of the collapse of part of the bridge and fence,” Croatian media relayed. At Jasenovac/Donja Gradina, which took the brunt of rerouted freight, truck drivers were waiting “up to an incredible 16 hours,” while cars queued for up to three hours. Other nearby crossings clocked jams from one to three hours as traffic was hurriedly diverted at the Okučani junction toward Slavonski Brod on the DC53.

Governments rushed to show they were in control. Republika Srpska’s Prime Minister Savo Minić insisted that “the executive power of Srpska has been taking all measures to resolve the problem since early morning, upon receiving information about the destruction of part of the bridge in Gradiška,” framing the response as swift and coordinated. In parallel, pro-government media stressed that authorities “have a new border crossing and institutions” ready to step in, but hinted they are being “blocked” politically.

Beyond the emergency engineering and rerouting, officials quietly acknowledged another culprit: the EU’s new Entry/Exit System. The fresh biometric checks for third-country nationals were “additionally complicating” an already snarled situation, turning a single structural failure into a full-blown stress test of Balkan–EU mobility.