PTI | | Posted by Nisha Anand
The Gujarat government-appointed Particular Investigation Workforce (SIT), as a part of its preliminary probe within the Morbi bridge collapse, has discovered that just about half of the wires on one cable had been corroded and that outdated suspenders had been welded with new ones — main faults that led to the tragedy, which killed 135 folks.
These findings are a part of the ‘Preliminary Report on Morbi Bridge Incident’ submitted by the five-member SIT in December 2022. The report was just lately shared with the Morbi Municipality by the state city improvement division.
The Oreva Group was liable for the operation and upkeep of the British-era suspension bridge on the Machchu river that collapsed on October 30 final 12 months. The SIT discovered a number of lapses in repairs, upkeep and operation of the bridge.
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IAS officer Rajkumar Beniwal, IPS officer Subhash Trivedi, a secretary and a chief engineer from the state roads and constructing division and a professor of structural engineering had been members of the SIT.
The SIT famous that of the 2 most important cables of the bridge, constructed by the erstwhile rulers in 1887 over Machchhu river, one cable was having problems with corrosion and practically half of its wires “could also be already damaged” even earlier than the cable snapped on October 30 night. Based on the SIT, the primary cable on the upstream aspect snapped, resulting in the tragedy.
The SIT additionally discovered that through the renovation work, “outdated suspenders (metal rods which join the cable with the platform deck) had been welded with new ones”.
Notably, the Morbi municipality, with out the approval of the overall board, had awarded the contract to take care of and function the bridge to Oreva Group (Ajanta Manufacturing Restricted), which had closed the bridge in March 2022 for renovation and opened it on October 26 with none prior approval or inspection.