150-year-old bridge snaps, 135 lives lost: Whom to blame, authorities or crowd? PM Modi calls for extensive inquiry

Several questions are being raised on what led to the collapse of the suspension bridge in Gujarat’s Morbi that ended up claiming 135 lives with the rescue operations still underway. While many are blaming it on the authorities and the firms managing the bridge, some are putting it on the ‘huge crows’ that turned up on the fateful Sunday. 

The Gujarat government’s official website defines the suspension bridge, built in 1877 over the Machchhu river, as an “engineering marvel”. It was 1.25 meters wide and spans 233 meters on the river connecting Darbargadh Palace and Lakhdhirji Engineering College.

The bridge - a major tourist attraction - remained closed for over seven months for repair and renovation works and reopened to the public on October 26, just for days before the mishap took place.    

It is alleged that Oreva group - the company which undertook the repair work - reopened the bridge without receiving a fitness certificate. The Morbi municipal authority too claimed that it was unaware of the bridge being reopened.

The police said that technical and structural flaws and some maintenance issues were prima facie responsible for the bridge collapse. Rajkot Range IG Ashok Kumar Yadav told reporters that the police will take help from forensic experts and structural engineers to probe all aspects related to it. 

A total of nine persons have been arrested on charges of culpable homicide (not amounting to murder). 

These include two managers of Oreva Group (Ajanta Manufacturing Pvt Ltd) , the company which was awarded the contract to maintain the bridge by the municipality, two ticketing clerks, two contractors engaged by the company for bridge repair work, and three security guards who were supposed to control the footfall on the bridge.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who visited the accident site on Tuesday and also met survivors at the hopsital, called for an extensive probe into the incident. 

Saptadip Sarkar, a structural engineer working with Delhi-based Engineers India Limited, told news agency PTI, “The deck of the suspension bridge, which bears the weight of the people walking on it in addition to its own weight, is held in place by the means of vertical suspenders which are made from ductile material and subjected to tension."

“These suspenders are then connected to the main cable which is also ductile and subjected to tension. The main cable, which spans between the points connected by the bridge and is intermediately supported by vertical main column piers, has two functions. The first is to support the vertical suspenders and the second is to maintain the verticality of the piers," he said. Overall, the weight of the deck, including the traffic of people, is transferred to the ground through the vertical piers, which are in compression, explained Sarkar.

He also highlighted that the main cable, suspenders and the points at which the suspenders connect to the bridge deck are vulnerable to failure. 

“In fact, the main cable requires the most attention in terms of regular checks and maintenance over the service period of the bridge. The reason for this being the fatigue load that it is continuously subjected to during its service,” he said. 

Oreva group, which is under scanner following the bridge collapse, specialises in CFL bulbs, wall clocks and e-bikes and it is not known how it managed to get the contract to maintain an over 100-year-old bridge. Founded by Odhavji Raghavji Patel nearly five decades back, the firm manufactures wall clocks under the popular Ajanta and Orpat brands.

The firm was given a contract by the Morbi Municipality to repair and operate the bridge for 15 years and charge tickets in the range of Rs 10 and Rs 15 for its use. 

Morbi municipality had agreed the company can collect Rs 15 from adults and Rs 10 from children below the age of 12 as entry tickets for the first year, with a Rs 2 hike every subsequent year, as per the agreement. When the accident took place, the price for an adult ticket was Rs 17 and that for a child was Rs 12. 

After the renovated bridge was inaugurated on October 26, Oreva Group’s Jaysukh Patel informed the media that his company had spent Rs 2 crore on the renovation, and ensured that the 150-year-old bridge was safe to use. 

As per the FIR, the bridge collapsed “from the middle" on the evening of October 30 when nearly 250 to 300 persons were on it. Reports also have it that the bridge was thronged by nearly 400 people that day. 

This brings up another crucial question -- why 400 people were allowed on the bridge against the allowed limit of 100? 

Meanwhile, the CCTV footage shows some people standing on the bridge deliberately and vigorously shake it. A few moments later, the bridge is seen collapsing.

The bridge, which had been newly renovated and opened on October 26, saw a huge surge of tourists on Sunday evening and allegedly snapped as it could not handle the weight. 

Several eyewitnesses said that some youths were shaking the bridge on purpose to “check its strength”.