Up to 60 trucks together weighing around 2,650 tons recently tested Romania's newly completed four-lane Brăila highway suspension bridge ahead of its imminent opening.

With a 3,675-ft main span and 6,480-ft overall length, the bridge over the River Danube a couple of miles from the town of Brăila ranks as one of Europe's longest suspension bridges. 

Expected to divert 7,000 vehicles a day from existing ferry crossings, the bridge is due to open early next month, though work is 97% complete, transportation minister Sorin Grindeanu announced on social media.  

Located on the Danube about 60 miles upstream of the Black Sea, the bridge was built by a consortium controlled by Italy's Webuild S.p.A. and including Japan's IHI Corporation. Italy-based SETIN Servizi Tecnici Infrastrutture S.r.l. handled detailed design. 

Funded mostly by the European Union, the design-build contract was awarded by the National Company for Road Infrastructure Management with a value of $475 million in 2018, according to Webuild.

The 80-ft-wide, 10.5-ft-deep steel box deck was lifted from barges in modules assembled in the nearby Vard shipyard by Italy's state-owned Fincantieri Infrastructure.  

The company said it fabricated the roughly 22,000 tons of steelwork at its Valeggio sul Mincio facility in northern Italy under a contract initially valued at $76 million.