Caught On Cam: Under Construction Bridge Over River Ganges in Bihar Collapsed

An under-construction Aguwani-Sultanganj bridge in Bihar's Bhagalpur collapsed on Sunday. However, portions of which were deliberately destroyed in a planned fashion under expert advice as it had design flaws, claimed state government officials.

This is the second time the bridge has collapsed. The incident happened at around 6 am. However, no casualties have been reported till now.

"We were expecting that the inauguration of the bridge would happen by November-December later this year. But the way it collapsed is unfortunate. A probe must happen into the incident, there's some fault," Sultanganj JDU MLA Lalit Narayan Mandal told ANI.

Bihar CM Nitish Kumar has also ordered a probe into the incident and asked to identify those responsible for it.

The bridge comes under Parvatta police station area in the Khagaria district of Bihar and the local administration, according to a report in Hindustan Times.

"We have received information about the collapse of pillar and segment. The incident pertains to Parvatta. We have spoken to the engineers involved in the construction of the bridge. As of now, there is no report of loss of life and property," the website quoted Bhagalpur SDO Dhananjay Kumar as saying.

Following criticism from the Opposition parties, Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav and Additional Chief Secretary of Road Construction Department, Pratyay Amrit, held a hurried press conference.

"It may be recalled that a portion of this bridge had collapsed on April 30 last year. We had, thereafter, approached IIT-Roorkee, which is esteemed for its expertise in construction matters, to conduct a study. It is yet to come up with a final report but experts who had studied the structure had informed us that there were serious defects," Yadav said at the press meet.

Amrit, who took over, added, "It was decided that we must not take any chance and wait for a final report. So we went ahead with pulling down parts of the bridge. Today's incident was a part of such a preventive exercise". Once the final report comes, which is expected shortly, the state government would contemplate action like lodging of FIR and blacklisting of the company which was awarded the contract, he said.

Last year, a section of an under-construction road bridge over the Ganga at Sultanganj in Bihar collapsed during a thunderstorm.

The construction of the 30-span bridge between Sultanganj and Aguani Ghat in Bihar had started in 2014 and was due to be completed in 2019.

Meanwhile, Bihar BJP President demanded the resignation of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and said the incident shows that "corruption is rampant" under the rule of the Nitish-led Bihar government. "Sub-standard materials were used for the construction of the bridge.

"The CM is least bothered about the development of Bihar...he is busy on his tour. He must resign from his post after this incident," he said.