Twenty men were engaged in the dangerous and delicate operation of stressing the new Commonwealth Avenue bridge, ready to connect the north and south sides of Canberra across the yet-to-be-filled Lake Burley Griffin, The Canberra Times reported on this day 58 years ago.
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The project involved 204 segments of the bridge being drawn together by the longest strand cables used on any bridge in the world, with the stressing to make the bridge self-supporting between piers and allow the removal of the timber false-work beneath it.
Meanwhile, a mass fish die off in Lake George had potentially been prompted by a fireball landing in the lake.
NSW Fisheries Department senior biologist Dr D. D. Francois said a sudden increase in the water temperature might have caused the death of countless fish in the lake.
The cause, he said, was "some natural catastrophe".
"Whatever the cause, I do not believe the deaths resulted from any act of man," Dr Francois said.
"The fact that fish have died in all parts of the lake seems to preclude the 'hand of man'."
