A portion of a 16.4 crore under-construction bridge collapsed and was washed away in Chhattisgarh on June 28. Residents had gone to the bridge to examine the water level of the river below it after four days of nonstop rain and were standing extremely close to the structure when it fell. There were no security preparations in place and no one including the engineer, manager, or contractor was present there.
However, according to local officials, no concrete had been poured and the collapsed structure merely received “staging and shuttering” from the contractor. They stated that the latter will be sent a show-cause notice. The vial video captures the bridge starting to sag before it collapses into a heap and is swept away by the river. As it fell, locals could be seen standing close to its edges.
पूल सिर्फ बिहार ही नहीं छत्तीसगढ़ में भी ढहते है
— हम लोग We The People (@ajaychauhan41) June 29, 2023
आज सुबह सुबह छत्तीसगढ़ के दुर्ग में शिवनाथ नदी में एक निर्माणाधीन पुल का ढांचा ढह गया, करोड़ों रुपए पानी में बह गए pic.twitter.com/rdXAcqJQqg
The 400-meter bridge is being constructed at Sagni Ghat in the Durg district to link the villages of Silli and Nankatti. The ghat is called Triveni Sangam because it is where the Shivnath, Aamner, and Sagni rivers converge. Its construction which started on November 11, 2020, was scheduled to be finished on April 11, 2022.
Four days of nonstop rain in the Durg division, according to officials, caused the flow of 24,000 cusecs of water from the Mogra reservoir into the Shivnath river. They claimed that the bridge gave way because it could not withstand the pressure of the increased water flow. According to DK Maheshwari, executive engineer for the Department of bridges, the contractor Amar Infrastructure was supposed to take down the building before the monsoon season, but it didn’t.
He mentioned, “These instructions are issued to all contractors ahead of the rainy season. Despite this, the contractor had not dismantled the structure at the Sagni Ghat bridge. Only the staging and shuttering have been washed away. No concrete had been poured. The damage, of around 12 lakh, will be borne by the contractor and a show-cause notice will also be issued.” When questioned about the reason for the bridge’s construction delay, he responded that problems with land acquisition were to blame.
The staging and centering structure of a portion of the bridge, as per the PWD’s bridge building division, is in ruins, but the remaining portions were undamaged.
Bihar bridge collapse
In the Kishanganj district of the Bihar, a bridge being built on the Mechi River caved in recently. The six-leg bridge bowed in the middle after one of its legs sank. In addition, eight bridges in Bihar have been destroyed by corruption in the past year. Previously, on June 4, a bridge over the Ganga in Bhagalpur district that had cost Rs 1700 crores to construct, crumbled and plunged into the water. On the other hand, on May 16 of last month, four hours after the concrete had been poured, an under-construction bridge in the Purnia district went down.
Two persons were hurt earlier on March 19 when a road bridge from the British era fell in the state’s Saran district. On February 19, a bridge that was still being built at Bihta Sarmeta in the Patna district collapsed. An overloaded truck caused an iron bridge to cave in earlier this year, on January 16, at Kusheshwar in the Darbhanga district.
An earlier fatality was caused by the collapse of a four-lane road bridge at Vena in the district of Nalanda on November 18, 2022. On June 9 of the same year, Simti Bakhtiyarpur in Saharsa district witnessed a similar catastrophe. Here, a section of the bridge gave way, injuring three workers. The 136-year-old Patna bridge fell at the same time on May 20 of last year as a result of excessive rain.
