The $30million Cau Cau bridge was supposed to open this month as an instant landmark¹ connecting Valdivia, a coastal² city in the south of Chile, with the adjacent（邻近的） 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 embarrassment³ for the prosperous South American country.

 

But its president, Sebastián Piñera, is blaming Spanish developers for the mistake.

 

'It can be fixed⁴, ... and it will be fixed by the company that made the mistake,' fumed⁵ 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 scrawly⁶ 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 inspectors⁷ getting ready for opening day found that either one or two of the traffic decks were installed backwards⁸, authorities said.

 

Azvi, the Spanish infrastructure⁹ 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 sprawling¹⁰ capital Santiago, is home to about 125,000 people.

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