A recently-constructed bridge in Bihar collapsed on Friday — cutting off several villages in Bhagalpur district. The incident is the latest in a series of construction mishaps that have plagued the state and took place as a river overflowed near Mustafapur village.
“The incident happened at around 6 am on Friday when one pillar of a small bridge over a road, which connects the Pirpauti-Babupur area with Bakharpur Road, slightly went down. Not the whole structure,” District Magistrate Nawal Kishor Choudhary told PTI.
Reports suggest that the bridge was made around two years ago by the Road Construction Department of the state government.
Traffic movement on the bridge was stopped soon after the incident — with five panchayat zones disconnected from the block headquarters and market area. According to a News18 Hindi report, around 1 lakh people in the area have been affected by the collapse.
The incident has also prompted sharp criticism from the opposition with RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav lashing out at the Nitish Kumar-led administration.
“Another bridge collapsed in Bhagalpur. In Nitish Kumar's regime, the roots of corruption are deep but the foundation of bridges is weak. The state witnessed the collapse of several bridges, constructed at the cost of several crores, in the last 2-3 months,” he wrote on X.
Dozens of bridges and causeways have collapsed across Bihar over the last few months, raising questions about the quality of their construction. Similar incident involving small bridges have been reported in Siwan, Saran, Madhubani, Araria, East Champaran and Kishanganj districts. Chief Minister Nitish Kumar recently directed a survey of all old bridges in the state.
The Bhagalpur incident comes mere days after portion of a bridge over the Kiul river in Lakhisarai district tilted on Monday — the second such incident in less than 24 hours. Part of the under-construction Bakhtiyarpur-Tajpur Ganga Mahasetu had collapsed in Patna district on Sunday night.
(With inputs from agencies)
