Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is on a three-day visit to election-bound Gujarat, paid a visit to the Morbi district in the state on Tuesday, November 1, in the aftermath of the tragic bridge collapse over the Machchhu river.
As per reports, the mortal remains of 135 people who drowned have been recovered while 2 are still missing. Since the time the tragedy struck, the Navy, Air Force, and Indian Army personnel have been working in rescue operations. A total of 180 were successfully rescued by the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams.
In the aftermath of the tragedy, the Gujarat government also acted swiftly and appointed a 5-member committee to investigate the incident. 9 persons have been arrested so far.
Nine people arrested in connection with bridge collapse at Gujarat’s Morbi till now. These include two managers of Oreva company, two ticket clerks along with two contractors and three security guards#MorbiBridgeCollapse pic.twitter.com/hzbP0hgWCd
— ANI (@ANI) October 31, 2022
After it was revealed that the private contractor, which was tasked with renovation work, opened the bridge for public use without fitness certification, the Gujarat police registered a criminal case against the contractor under Indian Penal Code (IPC) Sections 114, 304 (culpable homicide) and 308 (attempt to culpable homicide).
Machchhu Dam disaster
It may be recalled that a similar catastrophe occurred on the Machchhu dam, which is located on the same Machchhu River in Morbi, Gujarat, in 1979. The Morbi dam failure was listed as the worst dam burst in the Guinness Book of Records (before the death toll of the 1975 Banquiao Dam failure in China was declassified in 2005).
On August 11, 1979, a dam on the Machchhu river collapsed killing at least 1,500 people and more than 13000 animals. Due to incessant rains, local rivers were flooded and the Machchhu Dam was overflowing. The dam broke at 3.15 pm and within 15 minutes the water of the dam had engulfed the entire city.
In 2017, addressing a rally in Gujarat, PM Modi had spoken about the time when the tragedy struck Morbi. Modi recalled how the then Prime Minister and Congress leader Indira Gandhi had visited the disaster-stricken areas holding a hanky to her nose.
Referring to a photo published by Chitralekha, a Gujarati magazine, Modi had launched an attack on the feudal mindset of the Congress party.
He said, “When Indiraben came to Morbi, I remember there was a photo of her in the Chitralekha magazine with a hanky over her nose due to the foul smells.”
Modi, who himself was in the town to help with relief efforts when the tragedy struck Morbi had hailed RSS and Jan Sangh for standing shoulder to shoulder with the victims. “During the tragedy in 1979, I reached here on August 13 and stayed here for a month. The RSS and Sangh were on the streets, helping remove corpses and extend humanitarian assistance,” he said.
Notably, on the 36th anniversary of the 1979 Machchhu dam tragedy, Morbi-based RSS leader Dr. Jayanti Bhadesia spoke to Doordarshan and lauded the then-RSS Swayamsevak and present Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s contribution to flood rescue operations.
Meanwhile, coming back to the recent tragedy, on Sunday, October 30, 2022, over 140 people lost their lives after the cable bridge across the Machchhu river snapped and those who were on the bridge fell into the water.
As can be seen, just seconds before the cables snapped, some of the tourists were seen jumping on the suspension bridge, trying to oscillate it. Earlier videos of the same bridge have also shown people jumping and swaying on the bridge. This has led to a lot of speculation on social media.
OpIndia reached out to experts in engineering to understand what could have gone wrong. The experts are of the opinion that it is quite unlikely the bridge collapsed due to over capacity and it is likely that the material used was of low quality which could have led to the tragedy.
Many people on social media speculated that there is a chance the bridge collapsed due to overcapacity. However, the experts say this does not seem very likely as bridges are built to withstand a lot of weight. Hence, there is a higher chance that this was because of material or joint failure.
