22 of 49 cables of collapsed Morbi bridge found corroded, reveals SIT report

New Delhi: As many as 22 of the 49 cables of the Morbi bridge were found to be corroded and wires seemed to be already broken before the collapse, the preliminary report submitted by a Special Investigation Team revealed.

In the unfortunate Morbi suspension bridge collapse incident on October 22, 2022, 134 persons lost their lives after the century-old bridge fell into the Machchhu River of Morbi in Gujarat. “22 of the 49 cables were corroded which indicates that those wires may already be broken before the incident. The remaining 27 wires recently broke,” the report said.

The SIT report also states that proper testing of the main cable and vertical suspenders of the bridge was not carried out before commencement of repair work. During the repair works, old suspenders were welded with the new suspenders, which the report said changed its behaviour.

“The new deck comprised of honeycomb aluminium sheets which was supported by 4 aluminium channels, vis-a-vis, the old deck that was made of wooden plank and supported by 3 channels. This led to increasing in the weight of the bridge,” the report said, alleging that the company outsourced the repairing work to a “non-competent authority”.

Ajanta Manufacturing Limited (Oreva Group) had secured the contract to renovate, repair and operate the British-era bridge on the Machchu river in Morbi.

A 1,262-page chargesheet was filed in January, in which managing director of Oreva group Jaysukh Patel was included as an accused. After the chargesheet was field, he surrendered before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate in Morbi.

Besides pointing out anomalies in the bridge, the SIT report recommended a few guidelines. It recommended a register should be maintained for all public structures, periodic audits of those structures. A proper SOP should also be developed. Any structure which is being used by public, the report said, should be periodically inspected by “competent authority”.

The report further stated that no restriction were imposed on the number of persons accessing the bridge at a given point in time. There were no restriction in sale of tickets leading to unrestricted movement on the bridge.

In addition to that, insufficient security to prevent public from damaging the bridge, (A few youngsters were seen purposely moving the cable bridge right before the collapse of the bridge in a video, that surfaced after the collapse) were pointed out by the SIT.

Repair work was carried out without consulting competent technical experts, the report added.