Bridges standing on support of timber, finally collapse

Peddapalli: In a strange manner, underconstruction bridges on the Manair River to connect remote tribal areas in the two districts are collapsing successively causing problems to the people.

The then Roads and Buildings Minister Tummala Nageswar Rao and other public representatives laid the foundation stone for the construction of a kilometer long bridge at an estimated cost of Rs 47.40 crore on August 4, 2016, connecting Odedu village of Muttaram mandal of Peddapalli district and Garbhillapalli villages of Tekumatla mandal of Jayashankar Bhupalapalli district.

During the construction of the bridge, as the construction materials were damaged by heavy floods, two years ago, the contractor placed pieces of wood on the piers to prevent them from collapsing while connecting the girders. They are not fully tightened. The supporting timbers were destroyed by the torrential flow of two years of heavy floods in the Maneru River.

With this, the girders lost their grip. In this order, on April 22 this year, three piles of girders collapsed. Then the officials who conducted the investigation stated that the girders fell due to the destruction of the wooden pieces. With the coming of Lok Sabha elections none paid attention to it.

On Tuesday, five girders collapsed again. In both cases, Odedu villagers claim that they collapsed only when there was strong wind, while the officials say that there is no possibility of the dams collapsing due to wind and the concrete girders are very heavy.

It is noteworthy that such girders collapse like stack of cards. Suspicions are being raised whether the land was tested before the construction, is there proper supervision during the work and is the designing correct?

Each girder weighs 190 tonnes. 120 girders were required for the construction of the kilometer bridge. Of this, 58 have been connected to the bridge while the remaining 62 have not yet been fixed. The girders that collapsed on April 22 and July 2 were among the first 58 girders connected.

The concrete beams may have collapsed due to improper placement. The rest of the girders were also left untouched as soon as they were built. These are also prone to collapse. In the past, gas welding was done to the fallen girders and they tried to connect them to the bridge, but they did not stand. The contractor who has done these works is not interested in doing the works. We will collect the damage from him and hand over the rest of the work to another contractor and complete the work. We will examine the bridge works in full and take further action, said R&B DEE (Manthini)Zafar.

Dhinesh, a social worker from Peddapalli, told The Hans India that it is regrettable that no action has been taken against the concerned contractor and said that the government should respond immediately and form a committee to punish the culprits.