The incident took place in Mahishi village of Saharsa district on July 10. Visuals showed the bridge collapsing dramatically into the river below, with sections of the structure breaking apart and plummeting into the water.
The aftermath reveals debris scattered in the river, with large chunks of concrete and twisted metal submerged or partially visible above the waterline. According to reports, the series of collapses has triggered alarm and raised serious concerns about construction quality and safety protocols.
Local residents are seen gathered around the site, expressing shock and concern, while authorities and rescue teams work to assess the damage and ensure no one is trapped.
The affected area shows disrupted traffic and a line of vehicles halted abruptly by the sudden collapse, highlighting the immediate impact on daily commutes and transportation routes.
The collapse has caused significant disruptions, cutting off crucial transport links and posing a danger to commuters. Local residents and officials are calling for an urgent investigation to determine the root causes and to implement necessary safety measures to prevent further incidents.
State authorities are under immense pressure to address these recurring failures and ensure the stability and safety of Bihar's infrastructure.
The frequent collapses highlight the urgent need for stringent quality checks and maintenance protocols to protect public safety and restore confidence in the region's infrastructure development.
Torrential monsoon rains coupled with poor maintenance and corruption have been blamed for a wave of bridge collapses in India, putting the spotlight on infrastructure safety as heads roll and officials initiate policies to contain the crisis.
Within three weeks, 13 bridges crumbled in the eastern state of Bihar, with the latest structure coming down on Wednesday. Another installation failed in the northern Uttarakhand state over the weekend.
There are growing fears that the ongoing rainy season could trigger more causeway cave-ins.
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"It is monsoon time. There has been an abnormal amount of rain, which is the reason behind the collapse of bridges," said federal minister Jitan Ram Manjhi, who earlier suspected a "conspiracy" behind the disaster.
Nitish Kumar, Bihar's longest-serving chief minister, held a high-level meeting this week to take control of the situation and suspended 16 senior bureaucrats for dereliction of duty in maintaining the bridges.
On Monday, Kumar also hurriedly launched a bridge-specific maintenance policy that was in the works for nearly a decade.
The new rule mandates two inspections every year, and each bridge will have a "health card" with comprehensive details of its maintenance.
"Certain portions of bridges/causeways that caved in ... are very old. These structures don't seem to have been constructed following the required parameters," said Chaitanya Prasad, a senior government official following the meeting.
"It also appears that the foundation was not deep enough, a reason why these structures got damaged during floods."
The deluge-prone agrarian state, home to 21 rivers, has about 30 large and 1,200 small bridges.Though no casualties were reported in any of the collapses yet, the Supreme Court has been urged to order the Bihar administration to undertake a structural study of all the bridges.
"Back-to-back collapse of the bridges in Bihar clearly indicates that there have been no lessons learned, and safety of critical infrastructure like bridges is not taken seriously. These routine incidents cannot be termed merely accidents; they are man-made disasters," Brajesh Singh, the petitioner, said.
Between 1977 and 2017, more than 2,130 bridges collapsed during various stages of construction across India, according to a study published in 2020.
It found the average age of failure of bridges was 34.5 years, a low duration compared to the expected design life.
The report's lead author, Rajeev Kumar Garg, said the combined reasons of poor construction techniques and excessive flooding could have caused the bridges to collapse.
"In recent bridge failure cases, the bridges are small, and the flood is intense. Apparently, it can be said that the conjecture of inappropriate (type or weak) foundation coupled with intense flood caused the collapse," he told This Week in Asia.
"Where the foundation is intact, then the superstructure (deck) was aged and weak and so collapsed," said Garg, a researcher with New Delhi's CSIR-Central Road Research Institute.
Amitabha Ghoshal, former president of the industry body Consulting Engineers Association of India, said multiple factors including faulty construction, bridge overuse and irregular maintenance could have played a role in the disaster.
"Many failures happen during construction, as the bridge structure is incomplete at that stage and unable to resist the unplanned forces imposed by unskilled construction teams," said Ghoshal, who has more than six decades of experience in the construction of bridges.
While the design is checked and rechecked for the forces coming during its service life, the authorities seldom get the proper design done for the various stages of construction, he added.
Ghoshal said "acceptance of poor quality is prevalent in our corruption-ridden society" and the practice of awarding new contracts to companies with a history of failures because of their proximity to powerful politicians was common.
He called for systematic and scientific bridge health monitoring systems to prevent fresh mishaps.
A senior member of the Bihar Engineers Association, who did not wish to be identified, said rampant graft was chiefly behind the recent collapse of bridges that were all built by sub-par "corrupt" contractors close to those in power.
