What is the purpose of the copper wire they took? It must be there for something but seemingly did not affect BTS operations?

How can you haul 20km of wire away and no one notices?

I was going to ask a similar question - is this some kind of world record for the longest thing ever knocked off ? If so congrats to the bumbling burglars.

But as Thormaturge said, I will not believe they are the culprits unless someone, anyone, points at them.

easily they only took the ground-wires so if nothing short out than no-one knows

they should also visit the place where they sold it cannot tell me that that guy thought i was normal to have large quantities of perfectly good copper wire for sale

And ain't it just dandy that NO ONE inspected and noticed the missing 20 km of grounding wire..... Over ONE years time period....

What is the purpose of the copper wire they took? It must be there for something but seemingly did not affect BTS operations?

Almost certainly part of the stray-current protection, it stops the return current passing through the re-bar and tensioning tendons of the viaduct (where it could cause corrosion with predictable results).

Most of the return current passes via the running rails, but some can 'stray' into the structure, Google "stray current protection railway" for more info.

What is the purpose of the copper wire they took? It must be there for something but seemingly did not affect BTS operations?

Almost certainly part of the stray-current protection, it stops the return current passing through the re-bar and tensioning tendons of the viaduct (where it could cause corrosion with predictable results).

Most of the return current passes via the running rails, but some can 'stray' into the structure, Google "stray current protection railway" for more info.

Thanks, will have a look