The bridge at the Gradiška border crossing between Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina was damaged overnight, cutting off all traffic. After a calm night, a serious break in connections between two countries in the region.

"Half an hour ago the bridge at the Gradiška crossing cracked. Luckily, no one was hurt," said one reader who relayed the news around 3 AM. The information was confirmed by the Croatian Auto Club (HAK), which announced: "Due to damage to the bridge between the Stara Gradiška (Croatia) and Bosanska Gradiška (BiH) border crossings, all traffic is suspended until further notice."

The bridge is one of the main crossings of the Sava river between the two countries. With its emergency closure, vehicles now have to use alternative routes - the nearest ones are dozens of kilometres further away. For Balkan freight companies this means a new transport cost; for passengers it means a delay of at least an hour in each direction.

The cause of the damage hasn't yet been officially established. The authorities haven't done a preliminary assessment, and it's unclear whether this is infrastructure fatigue (the bridge is old, built in the late 1960s) or a specific incident. In the Balkans this kind of uncertainty usually drags on for weeks - in that time several expert commissions form, dissolve, and the problem ends up patched with chance. That's the story Croatia and BiH both know by heart.

The question worth attention is a different one: how often does the Balkans repair bridges inherited from Yugoslavia? Repair when they shut down. Preventive maintenance - that's a vocabulary that has no place in transition budgets. And that's the reason these stories keep repeating - not in the news, but in the lives of people who cross them day after day.