Nitish Kumar, the Chief Minister of Bihar, acknowledged the bridge's flawed design on Monday, a day after a bridge crossing the Ganga that was still under construction collapsed. Speaking to news agency ANI, Kumar stated that anybody found guilty will face the due consequences. He continued by saying that the same bridge had also fallen in 2022.
Kumar said, "The bridge that collapsed yesterday had collapsed last year also. I have instructed officials to take strict action. It is not being constructed correctly that's why it is collapsing again & again. The department will look into it & action will be taken."
No injuries reported so far
According to earlier reports, Kumar wanted to identify who was responsible for the event and promptly initiated an investigation. Videos of the Sunday collapse of the Bhagalpur bridge that connected Aguvanighat and Sultanganj were widely disseminated on social media. There were no injuries in the incident.
According to news agency PTI, deputy chief minister Tejashwi Yadav had earlier said that the building's demolition was scheduled because specialists had discovered "serious defects" in its construction.
Second collapse of the same bridge
The decision was made after a section of the same bridge collapsed during a thunderstorm in 2022, according to Yadav and the additional chief secretary of the road construction department, Pratyay Amrit. The government subsequently tasked scientists at IIT-Roorkee with analysing the structure, he continued.
The BJP, Kumar's former ally in the state, voiced anger over the bridge fall. Shehzad Poonwalla, the national spokesperson for the BJP, called it "the bridge of corruption," while Lalit Narayan Mandal, a JDU MLA from Sultanganj, said, "We were expecting that the inauguration of the bridge would happen by November-December later this year…A probe must happen into the incident, there's some fault.”
