Even as the death toll in the rail overbridge collapse on National Highway-117 in south Kolkata rose to two, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said metro rail construction work led to tremors in the area.
A girder of the flyover collapsed late afternoon on Tuesday killing one and injuring 24 persons. A second body was recovered while clearing the debris today.
“Metro rail construction work was on in the area and locals have often felt tremors and complained about it. We are not overlooking any of the probable reasons for the collapse,” Banerjee said after paying a visit to the site.
According to the Chief Minister, piling work for metro rail construction has often led to vibrations in the area. And it is “practical problem”. She stopped short of blaming the construction activity as a reason.
A “high level probe” to be headed by the Chief Secretary has already been ordered. “It’s unfortunate. We have called for an emergency meeting tomorrow,” she said.
Popularly known as Majerhat bridge, the flyover was maintained by the West Bengal Public Works Department. The Kolkata police has filed an FIR against unknown persons for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempt to murder and so on.
“This Majerhat bridge is 54 years old and there are many old bridges in the country and in Bengal. We do not have records for all,” Banerjee claimed.
Metro rail refutes allegations
Incidentally, the Rail Vikas Nigam Ltd, the implementing agency for the Metro Railway project, has maintained that there was “no relationship” between construction activity and collapse of the flyover.
Construction activity was completed “more than one year” back and preparatory work “away from the rail overbridge” was in progress.
According to AK Roy, Chief Project Manager, RVNL, the collapse occurred due to a “mid-span failure” of the girder which are “very old” and “are of longer length”. The approach piers of the rail over bridge at “both ends” of the affected span are “intact”.
“There is no relationship of Metro construction with this mid-span failure…. In fact condition of piers of both end are clear indication of that,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Eastern Railway has asked the state-run RITES Ltd to probe the collapse of the Majerhat Bridge and examine the safety of railway operations there in its wake.
RITES Ltd, under the aegis of Indian Railways, is a multi-disciplinary consultancy organisation in the fields of transport, infrastructure and related technologies.