A crowd of nearly 300 people gathered on the bridge due to Chhath Puja and witnessed the collapse. While many jumped off, many were pulling the wires to navigate to a safer place after the bridge fell into the Machchhu River.
What led to the Morbi Bridge Collapse Incident in Gujarat?
The Morbi Bridge collapse has brought the entire country under an umbrella of despair and anguish. The sudden death of nearly 141 people has successfully lit up the burning agitation that now gets fueled after witnessing the government’s negligence. So, the time has arrived to question the system and draw facts that led to the unfortunate incident on 30th November. In this article, we will bring out the facts about the lucid role of the government and how they could have prevented the bridge collapse without corruption in the entire system.
When Did Morbi Bridge in Gujarat Collapse?
On 30th November, around 6:30 pm (expected ), the Morbi Suspension Bridge over the Machchhu River in Morbi, Gujrat, collapsed, killing almost 141 people and causing injuries to several others. The suspension bridge had the basic structure in which the deck hung below the cables on the vertical suspenders. Built-in 1879 when India was under British rule, it is now closed under construction for the past seven months due to repair. The Morbi Bridge reopened during Diwali and the Gujarat New Year.
While most authorities are pointing towards overloading the bridge due to a massive crowd, citizens are questioning the failure and negligence resulting in such destruction.
What Safety Concerns Have Been Raised?
With the bridge’s collapse during the election period, politics bypassed the discussion of responsibility and the reasons for the bridge’s collapse.
Some question whether the Gujarat-based electronics and watch manufacturer Oreva Group, which carried out the renovation, violated safety rules.
Morbi City Director Sandeepsinh Zala said Oreva had a contract to maintain the bridge for 15 years. India’s NDTV news reports that the company deliberately reopened the bridge ahead of schedule.
“They have not given us any information that they will reopen the bridge,” Zala told The Indian Express. “We didn’t give them any [security] certificate.”
Indian Express also witnessed an Oreva company official saying- While we were waiting for more information, the first look is that the bridge collapsed because too many people were trying to cross it from one direction to the other in the middle of the bridge.
The Gujarat government has started an investigation into the bridge collapse. The government body set up a five-member special commission of inquiry to investigate the incident after the British bridge collapsed days after it reopened. Rahul Tripathi, Morbi SP, confirmed that a couple of people got arrested during the interrogation. The Gujarat Police filed an FIR against the Bridge Maintenance Agency for “killing the culprit.”
“It is a sad incident. Many people died. It was an old bridge which got repaired recently. The government should look into it,” said Bihar CM Nitish Kumar.
What Was the Response of the Government?
The death of more than a hundred people in the bridge’s collapse sparked outrage as many demanded the resignation of the CM and probed how the bridge was opened to the public without proper care and jammed without any safety mechanism.
Our Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Morbi Today. Modi has served as the Chief Minister of Gujarat for 12 years, and the state is likely to go to polls this year. He canceled his Ahmedabad tour, while Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal canceled all events in his state. The Congress has also postponed the Gujarat Parivartan Sankalp Yatra in five poll-bound zones of the state. The BJP-led state government has constituted a five-member team of bureaucrats and police officials to investigate the bridge collapse.
What is the Role of Police Regarding Morbi Bridge Collapse?
The 230-meter-old suspension bridge – a major local tourist attraction – only reopened last week after repairs. According to the police investigating the Sunday evening disaster, all nine arrested people are related to the Oreva group, the maintenance and operation of the bridge. Two managers, two contractors, three security guards, and two ticket guards got arrested due to security negligence. They are being investigated now due to the culpable homicide not amounting to murder, as said senior police officer Ashok Kumar Yadav.
However, the municipal authorities did not issue a fitness certificate or other necessary permits after the completion of the repair work.
An FIR has got lodged beneath sections 304 (culpable murder now no longer amounting to murder), 308 (intentional act inflicting death), and 114 (abettor gift while offense committed), in line with Gujarat Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi. He also stated that a high-powered committee would perform a probe into the incident.
How Has the Response of the Opposition Been So Far?
The fact that the bridge was recently renovated but was said to be open to the public without the required “fitness certificates” sparked opposition in Gujarat, pointing fingers at the government’s negligence.
With Gujarat parliamentary elections looming, the air gets already filled with election campaigns, but the political reaction to the collapse has taken on new meaning.
Opposition politicians, including Digvijay Singh, Y.Sathish Reddy of Telangana Rashtra Samithi, and Manoj Singh of the Samajwadi party, spoke of the time Modi called the 2016 flyovers to collapse in Kolkata an “act of fraud” and not “an act of God.”
Prime Minister of West Bengal and Speaker of Trinamul Parliament Mamata Banerjee expressed her “deep concern” at the tragic collapse and tweeted her condolences. State Transport Minister Snehashish Chakraborty asked if the West Bengal BJP would send a “real investigation team” to Gujarat to investigate the cause of the crash.
Newly elected Chief Minister Mallikarjun Kharge and party leader Rahul Gandhi called on all Gujarat members to lend full support to the rescue efforts.
Rahul Gandhi tweeted in Hindi that the news was sad and he would provide all possible assistance to the injured and would help to search for the missing people.
Who To Blame: Final Take
The footage taken just before the collapse showed a group of people taking pictures while others attempted to move the bridge before falling into the river as they pulled metal wires back. So, many blame the crowd that led to the unfortunate event. Even the Gujarat Forensic Team claimed that The swollen crowd stressed the bridge’s structural integrity and led to the tragedy. However, only the overcrowding cannot cover the lack of security, poor material used for renovation, and absolute negligence that caused the sudden collapse of Morbi Bridge.
Oreva, the Gujarat-based watchmaker that rebuilt the bridge, was awarded the contract by the Morbi municipality in March and did not go through the bidding process, according to contract documents. Some of the old wires connecting the bridge remained after the reconstruction.
Mayor Sandipsinh Zala said Oriva had not notified authorities of the bridge’s reopening, and the company had not issued a certificate of entitlement. Oreva did not respond to this statement.
All these statements point clearly to corruption and negligence in the authority bodies. The burning questions still disturb all the citizens and raise concerns about how corruption has spread in the entire system that, puts everyone’s life at risk.
