Around seven million dollars have been spent on the redesigning and construction of 14 bridges along the Nabouwalu-Dreketi highway in Vanua Levu.

MWH Global Senior engineer, Craig Mocke, told FBC News the current bridges are all new and have replaced the original ones.

Mocke says the original bridges have been demolished because they were all in a poor state.

‘’The bridges that were built the decks of the bridges had teared up really badly and they weren’t really safe so we had to reinforce those bridges while we built the new bridges’’.

Mocke adds that while all the materials have been resourced from within Fiji, foam works for the beams had to be imported from China to ensure the beams support the bridge well.

He says the bridges have been redesigned to give it a longer life span of at least a century and can also last longer than that.

Of the 14 bridges, one bridge at Namau settlement has been specially designed to go underwater during floods to avoid water going into nearby houses.