[paragsachania]

Originally Posted by abirnale

NH17 as such is very crowded anyway. Having two way traffic on these bridges each taking one direction is easy way out many times.

For a fact, this is a section where 4 lane work is complete as it looks like from the maps, Arial Video Grabs etc.

This is something really normal in our country where expansion to dual carriageway means retain the old bridge for one way traffic and build another one for the other direction.

This "Trend" of retaining older & weaker bridges should really stop now. Technology has advanced and we can build better bridges to save lives.

[vivek95]

Originally Posted by pixantz

Can someone who has actually used either of these bridges or has passed this way throw some light on exactly why these two continued to be used simultaneously? If they are so close as to almost touching, there must have been an advantage of the old bridge being consciously used like, for example it must've been leading to a kind of shortcut ahead or gave access to a better route ahead, or the likes.

Or then they both started and ended at the same entry exit points and the old one was just left to hang around just for fun??

As some people say thay they were used as one-ways for opposite traffic, this doesn't seem to be the case because the new bridge clearly has center white marker strips indicating a two way road. Anybody with more info?

I have not been on this bridge recently but I rode solo last year in June on this route from Belgaum to Bombay via Goa--NH17 all through and I can correctly recall there is a few kms of section between Poladpur--Mahad which is 4 laned in 2 short stretches including this very twin bridge. So, the one that collapsed last night was old bridge meant for Bombay bound traffic and the new one is for Goa bound traffic. Both were regularly used as far I know. Mumbai and Pune have a huge populace of those whose roots are in Konkan, so I am sure many Maharashtra based BHPians take this route regularly to their natives. Let us wait for them to pitch in and confirm if I am correct.

By the way the incident is really nightmare and tragic. One of the buses was Rajapur--Mumbai and other was working Jaygad--Mumbai and along with these buses, 10 other cars/vehicles have been reportedly washed away last night. My take on this is that the moment the buses were on the bridge, it collapsed. Not sure how other cars/ vehicles fell down, may be they could not stop in time or didn't notice the broken bridge.

My cousin from Satara,MH used to tell me there is an old British built bridge in that city and how Satara Muncipal Corporation had once received a letter from London intimating them to stop using the bridge as its life would end in a couple of years or so. My dad has a similar story to tell about a British era bridge in Kolhapur district,MH. I am not sure if the PWD or NHAI division concerned with this bridge in Mahad had undertaken any inspection or maintenance work before the onset of monsoons or not.

EDIT :- @paragsachania As far I know, 4 laning has not even begun in this stretch near Mahad. Its only Bombay(Panvel)--Indapur section which is u/c for 4 lanes at present. Indapur is beyond Mahad/Nagothane going towards Bombay. Apart from this, Mahad--Poladpur has 2 short 4 lane stretches as mentioned earlier but not as a part of new construction and then the 21 km Sawantwadi bypass which you know is the only fully functional new 4 lane on NH17 between Bombay and Goa

Take a look at these pics sourced from internet, looks scary like hell. Can't even imagine the plight of those ill-fated people who fell into this river at night

[pixantz]

The creepy thing is not even one single trace of any fallen vehicle or the said buses is even visible. Says a lot about the force of the water.

[Bigzero]

Very sad indeed .

I dont know the technicalities involved, but I think bridges like any other structure will have a designed lifespan, and we in India continue to use them even when they are way beyond their expiry dates. I am sure some testing does get done from time to time to ensure that there are no alarming signs of structural weakness or decay - but for old bridges that continue to carry reasonably heavy traffic, it may make better sense to demolish them and build new ones.

But it calls for planning, upfront investments and breaking something that "seems" to be ok. Will be a tough call for us I guess.

After all we are used to squeezing the last molecule of toothpaste out of the tube - by jamming it against the door or using various other methods..

[GTO]

Sends shivers down my spine I think I know which this bridge is and have used it countless times on the way to Mahabaleshwar / Goa. Narrow like you wouldn't believe. Remember waiting at one end until busses (opposite direction) would cross over. Can't believe this bridge is still in use as it was narrow by 1990 standards!

Hats off to the garage chap for stopping traffic. Read somewhere that the bridge collapsed at midnight, but these busses drove straight into the hole. After all, who expects a bridge to disappear just like that! The poor visibility due to the darkness + rain was a recipe for disaster. On a bright sunny day, no chance this would've happened.

[mangespat]

As far as I know the life of bridges can be extended beyond the regular end life with additional support to the pillars and regular maintenance work carried out. This is a regular practice not just in india but all over the world. Until and unless the a bridge is considered extremely unsafe it is not normally destroyed.
FYI (http://https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_bridge_failures)

http://science.howstuffworks.com/eng...-collapse5.htm

I know about the bridge/causeway from Panaji to Ribandar being maintained regularly to avoid a disaster.

I am sure the required maintenance and the extra support work was done on this bridge since this is a national highway managed NHAI. In my mind NHAI has been doing a fantastic job (I may be wrong). So I believe this is an extraordinary case where the amount of water flowing in the river may have been underestimated. It could also be a case of some sort of debris flowing in the river that could have weakened and helped in collapsing the bridge. Since this happened at night there is no way of verifying what exactly happened.

So I say lets just give the benefit of doubt to the people managing the bridge and hope the ones who were caught in this tragedy are found and are safe.

Also if we are talking about the "Corrupt Government", Wouldn't they have also jumped at the opportunity to demolish this bridge and taken up the project for a new bridge as that would mean more money and more contracts and more bribes?

[SDP]

The news coverage mentioned that the concerned river (Savitri) originates from Mahabaleshwar. Mahabaleshwar and the catchment areas have received record rainfall in last 24 hours. Here's a news item stating "mahabaleshwar-observes-second-highest-rainfall-in-a-decade": http://www.skymetweather.com/content...l-in-a-decade/

This explains why the river was flowing above danger mark with a near flood-like situation.

[Chetan_Rao]

Originally Posted by mangespat

........Wouldn't they have also jumped at the opportunity to demolish this bridge and taken up the project for a new bridge as that would mean more money and more contracts and more bribes?

Maintenance contracts aren't exactly cheap, and based on how conscientiously (or lack thereof) the work is carried out, it may mean a lot of money for doing practically nothing! Not unheard of in India

[abirnale]

See this. This snippet came over a forward link from a person who stays in that area. I jus hope that this is not a photoshop work. The news in sept 2013 indicates that the bridge was in very bad shape! Was not supposed to be used according to the above cutout.

[anjan_c2007]

A very tragic and gory incident. Nothing less than homicide, with the concerned authorities to fully blame and accept full liability for the tragedy.

Numerous flyovers have been built in Maharashtra over the past decade and a half, some of them being totally unwanted. The concerned Central and State government departments must have obviously certified such doddering 100 year old or 100 minus/plus years old bridges as safe for any amount of traffic at any time of the year. These concerned authorities presumably have no mechanism or mandate to mandatorily check the condition of such bridges it appears, from all the circumstantial facts and evidences.

And on the other side of the spectrum, some authorities are busy banning 2000 cc plus diesels, 10 year old diesels, fifteen year old motor vehicles and scrapping of old motor vehicles, overlooking doddering and unsafe, killer bridges of this kind.

Very pitiable state !

[Thad E Ginathom]

Adding to the conjecture, the old, fallen bridge is the downstream bridge, right? We can see that, at this monsoon time, the river is fierce. My idea is that the extra turbulence created by the new bridge might have speeded up damage to the old bridge.

The previously posted google-maps pic suggests that, out of monsoon, the river is almost dry, which makes lack of inspection and maintenance even more unforgivable.

[SmartCat]

What is the gist of the Hindi news article about the condition of the bridge?

Originally Posted by GTO

Read somewhere that the bridge collapsed at midnight, but these busses drove straight into the hole.

This looks more likely. Because, so late in the night, its unlikely that 2 buses and 4 cars were driving so close to eachother that they'd all fall into the river as the bridge collapsed.

[Thad E Ginathom]

I'd assumed that the castrophic collapse was while the vehicles were on the destroyed section, ie, the road literally disappeared from under them. It is a huge part of the bridge that is gone.

[pixantz]

Originally Posted by GTO

Read somewhere that the bridge collapsed at midnight, but these busses drove straight into the hole. After all, who expects a bridge to disappear just like that! The poor visibility due to the darkness + rain was a recipe for disaster. On a bright sunny day, no chance this would've happened.

The funny part is, nobody actually claimed to see all of the 8 cars + 2 busses actually falling in except for the guy who later stopped the vehicles from going ahead who claims to have seen about two of them and he was not clear exactly when did he really see them. So first of all how did this vehicle count come up and who summed it up is technically not clear and remains a mystery.

Secondly, if all of these people who fell in, (assuming from the reports that they fell in) really drove into the gaping gap, they all would have had to be in a real hurry and at considerably high speeds to have been unable to brake in time or see the gap in time. Now its unlikely that all of them were driving so wildly given that it was raining heavily too, and zoomed right in.

These are my assumptions but keeping them in mind, I came to the conclusion that most of those 'reported' 10 vehicles were on the bridge and tailing each other closely waiting to zoom past the first guy (which probably was a bus cautiously ambling along slowly in the heavy rain) as soon as the bridge ended because it was too narrow. Typical highway-driving style nowadays.

Maybe all of the compounded weight at the same time too played a role in the rickety structure finally giving up.

The point being, it isn't necessary that all of the drivers actually zoomed in blindly as one would mostly conclude.

Originally Posted by smartcat

its unlikely that 2 buses and 4 cars were driving so close to eachother that they'd all fall into the river as the bridge collapsed.

As I mentioned above, given that it was raining heavily, this bottleneck bridge might have caused drivers to slow down on the bridge maybe by a slower vehicle up front and this shortly caused a mini bumper-to-bumper, so there were about 6-8 vehicles at that point in time. Its a possibility given the statistics and that gap is real wide sir.

[vivek95]

Originally Posted by pixantz

The funny part is, nobody actually claimed to see all of the 8 cars + 2 busses actually falling in except for the guy who later stopped the vehicles from going ahead who claims to have seen about two of them and he was not clear exactly when did he really see them. So first of all how did this vehicle count come up and who summed it up is technically not clear and remains a mystery.

Secondly, if all of these people who fell in, (assuming from the reports that they fell in) really drove into the gaping gap, they all would have had to be in a real hurry and at considerably high speeds to have been unable to brake in time or see the gap in time. Now its unlikely that all of them were driving so wildly given that it was raining heavily too, and zoomed right in.

True that. Seemed kind of an exaggeration of facts at first but the below from ''The Hindu'' is somewhat believable. Read these lines

'' According to eyewitness reports, the incident occurred at 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday night.

“I was screaming for the other vehicles to stop when I discovered to my horror that the bridge no longer existed. I saw three cars, of the ‘Wagon R’ type plunge into the water and tried calling 100 to no avail,” said Basant Kumar Mishra, a driver who was among those who took the initiative to warn other vehicles, thus averting further tragedy. ''

Link to the news - http://www.thehindu.com/news/nationa...cle8938798.ece

Now, Basant Kumar Mishra is the same mechanic , the first witness who was working nearby about whom we are discussing since morning but is being referred to as a driver above, not sure which version is true but it seems acceptable to me that a person starts screaming and waving frantically at moving cars in the middle of the night on an old fashioned 2 laned highway in heavy rains, but they pay no heed probably fearing him to be ''something'' or someone who can turn out to be harmful if stopped. Possible ??

If the reports in Hindu are to be believed, that gives us 2 buses and 3 cars = 5 vehicles. May be he didn't notice another car/cars say about 2 that were already on the bridge running in between the two buses that could have been invisible to him from a distance. This is unlikely though and 5 is what we can take, anything else is mystery.