Bihar: Part of bridge over Ganges collapses, no casualties

Bhagalpur/Khagaria/Patna, Aug 17 (PTI) A portion of an under-construction bridge in Bihar, which was being "dismantled", crashed into the river Ganges river on Saturday, officials said.

The administration made it clear there were no casualties.

Video footage of a slab of the bridge, connecting Bhagalpur and Khagaria districts, has gone viral on social media in which locals, beholding the sight from a distance, can be heard screaming "the structure has collapsed once again".

Notably, portions of the bridge, which would be 3.16 km long once complete, had collapsed earlier in 2022 and again, a year later.

However, when contacted, Khagaria District Magistrate Amit Kumar Pandey asserted that "the entire structure of the under-construction bridge has been deemed to be faulty and it is being dismantled by the contractor as per direction of the Patna High Court".

The incident, which comes in the backdrop of numerous incidents of bridge collapse across the state, many of these taking place a few months back, triggered a political slugfest.

RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav, a former deputy chief minister who held road construction portfolio till his party lost power in January this year, squarely blamed the Nitish Kumar government for the incident.

"The structure was examined by a committee of experts from IIT Roorkee when I headed the department. They found flaws in the designs of the foundation and the superstructure. But Chief Minister Nitish Kumar seems least bothered and it appears the report is gathering dust".

Senior BJP leader Vijay Kumar Sinha, the current Deputy CM who holds road construction department, retorted, "Things would not have come to this, had the previous government been vigilant enough".

"Nonetheless, we are not happy with the performance of the contractor whom the high court has directed to carry out the dismantling work. We are monitoring it. We shall also be apprising the high court of the laxity of the contractor, against whom action needs to be taken," Sinha added. PTI