The Dali weight and momentum easily displaced the bridge support’s foundation . . . before the ship struck the bridge support itself.
Yeah, but this bridge didn’t have any kind of upstream structure to protect the piers at all. Sure, they have a foundation, but that’s immediately below each pier, and looking at the aerial photos of the bridge (pre-incident), the piers are entirely unprotected other than for a very few feet of concrete belonging to the pier foundations. And the foundation doesn’t appear to extend more than just a few feet above the water. This ship, or any of similar size, would not have even contacted those foundations before the bow rammed the bridge pier structure.