Bihar's Araria Bridge, Constructed at Rs 12 Crore, Collapses Just Before Official Inauguration [watch]

A newly constructed bridge in Bihar's Araria collapsed just before its inauguration on Tuesday, but fortunately, no one was injured. Costing Rs 12 crore, the bridge over the Bakra River linked Sikti and Kursakanta blocks. This incident marks the second bridge collapse in Bihar within a year.

A video capturing the collapse spread widely on social media, drawing attention to the safety of infrastructure projects in the region.

VIDEO | A portion of a bridge on Bakra river collapses in Bihar's Araria. More details awaited. pic.twitter.com/hiLnY8NNfl

— Press Trust of India (@PTI_News)

Responding to the incident, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari clarified on a microblogging site that the bridge construction fell under Bihar's Rural Development Ministry, not the Central Road Transport Ministry.

This isn't the first such incident in Bihar. Earlier this year in March, an under-construction bridge in Supaul caused one fatality and injured ten others when a slab collapsed near Maricha, between Bheja and Bakaur, over the Kosi River.

In a similar incident in June 2023, a substantial section of the Aguani-Sultanganj bridge in Bhagalpur, under construction as a four-lane bridge, collapsed into the River Ganga, adding to concerns about construction quality and safety.

Former Bihar Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav emphasized the need for thorough technical analysis after previous collapses. An investigation involving experts from IIT Bombay, IIT Roorkee, and the National Institute of Information Technology (NIIT) was initiated to determine the causes, attributing the collapse of a bridge on April 30, 2022, to a thunderstorm.

Authorities had already been scrutinizing the design and safety aspects following earlier incidents, with plans to demolish and reconstruct bridges where necessary to ensure public safety and infrastructure reliability in Bihar.
 

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