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| Baramulla's old bridge caves during day time, lives of hundreds saved | | |  S Tahir-ul Haq
Early Times Report
BARAMULLA, Feb 23: Hundreds of persons would have died today here in this North Kashmir district, had the wooden bridge that caved in during day collapsed in the evening, when there is a huge rush of the people. The bridge was the oldest wooden bridge in Old Town here. This bridge was closed for vehicular movement after September 2014 floods.
The bridge located near fish market connects dozens of villages including old town Baramulla with rest of the district and it depicted the history of Baramulla. This bridge was built in 1938 and was closed by the district administration owing to the damages it suffered during 2014 deluges, sources told Early Times.
Sources said that despite repeated public outcry and assurances from the concerned officials of Roads & Buildings (R&B) department the repair work on the bridge was not taken up. They added that the previous government failed to repair this bridge over river Jhelum in Baramulla town.
"I was about to cross the wooden bridge, suddenly I got a call from friend for meeting. As I turned back to meet him suddenly there was a noise of collapse in which one man fell along with a wooden log in river. The man managed to save himself as boats were carrying passengers from one end to the other," said a local resident.
The residents said that miraculously hundreds of lives got saved as it was a day time adding that if the accident would have happened in evening time, there may have been some casualties. The residents held the R&B department officials responsible for this negligence saying that department officials have turned a deaf ear to the problems faced by them.
"During the last year the concerned authorities of R&B department had temporarily built Pontoon Bridge here as an alternative, which got also damaged due to flow of gushing water. Since September 2014, the department had closed this bridge with tin shields for public movements, as the department had found it unsafe," said locals. The locals alleged that the concerned authorities are not constructing this bridge deliberately with one or the other reason. They said that even though many times in past various delegations met with the district administration to solve this problem, but of no avail. "We approached the R&B and higher authorities for construction of new bridge here in old town. But their non-serious approach always added miseries to our lives and today it exposed their callous attitude towards the development," said locals. |
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