Huge hole develops on flyover

Close shave for night bus passengers near Guwahati outskirts, locals demand probe of contractor MBL Infrastructures Limited

FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT

DIMORIA, June  9: Barely a month after an under-construction bridge on tiol Highway 37 collapsed at Sopur on the city outskirts, a large hole developed on a flyover on the same highway today at 8th Mile (near Ganesh Mandir) here, triggering  massive traffic srls.

As many as 40 passengers of a night super bus coming from upper Assam had a close shave as a front wheel of the bus nearly got trapped in the yawning hole. “A terrible accident was fortuitously averted as the bus was not in high speed,” said a local.

According to local people, the hole, measuring about three-and half feet in diameter and three feet deep,  rapidly developed on the flyover at around 6 am today after heavy downpour in the area overnight. 

With no outlet for the runoff from the hills nearby, the gushing waters bore down upon the flyover and a portion simply gave way. Locals alleged that technical faults in the flyover’s design was the cause for the hole developing, along with poor execution.  

They demanded that everybody associated with construction of the flyover be brought under a probe. “Low quality material was used in the construction of the highway and the flyover. We want a thorough probe,” they said.

Locals further alleged that today’s incident once again proved that the quality of the construction work of the East West Corridor from Khapara to Sopur, a project of the NHAI, carried out by MBL Infrastructures Limited, is very poor. They demanded strict action against those responsible for the crimil waste of State resources.

It may be mentioned that a portion of an RCC bridge, being constructed on NH 37 over the river Digaru near Sopur on the city outskirts, collapsed on May 6 last.

Work on the bridge, being built at a cost of around Rs 1.66 crore, was on for the last eight years. The bridge was to be thrown open to vehicular traffic in September.

KMC Limited, Hyderabad, was working on widening and strengthening of NH 37 from Dharamtul to Sopur in Assam as part of the East-West Corridor project while RITES Limited, a Central government undertaking specializing in the field of transport infrastructure, was supervising the project.