Floods, corruption, lax maintenance take toll on India’s creaking bridges: ‘lucky that no one died’

Torrential monsoon rains coupled with poor maintenance and corruption have been blamed for a wave of bridge collapses in India, putting the spotlight on infrastructure safety as heads roll and officials initiate policies to contain the crisis.

Within three weeks, 13 bridges crumbled in the eastern state of Bihar, with the latest structure coming down on Wednesday. Another installation failed in the northern Uttarakhand state over the weekend.

There are growing fears that the ongoing rainy season could trigger more causeway cave-ins.

“It is monsoon time. There has been an abnormal amount of rain, which is the reason behind the collapse of bridges,” said federal minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, who earlier suspected a “conspiracy” behind the disaster.

Nitish Kumar, Bihar’s longest-serving chief minister, held a high-level meeting this week to take control of the situation and suspended 16 senior bureaucrats for dereliction of duty in maintaining the bridges.

On Monday, Kumar also hurriedly launched a bridge-specific maintenance policy that was in the works for nearly a decade.

The new rule mandates two inspections every year, and each bridge will have a “health card” with comprehensive details of its maintenance.

“Certain portions of bridges/causeways that caved in … are very old. These structures don’t seem to have been constructed following the required parameters,” said Chaitanya Prasad, a senior government official following the meeting.

“It also appears that the foundation was not deep enough, a reason why these structures got damaged during floods.”

The deluge-prone agrarian state, home to 21 rivers, has about 30 large and 1,200 small bridges.

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Bridge under construction collapses for second time in a year in eastern India

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