• Source:JND
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Kishanganj Bridge Collapse: Around 40,000 people in dozens of villages in Bihar were cut off from the mainland on Wednesday night when a section of a 13-year-old bridge fell in Kishanganj. In the last seven days, there have been four such incidents in Bihar.

Built in 2011 as part of the Mukhyamantri Gram Sadak Yojana for Rs 25 lakh, the 70-metre-long and 12-metre-wide bridge caved in under the weight of floodwaters brought on by nonstop rain. There have been no confirmed casualties thus far.

Traffic has been halted and barricades placed on both sides of the bridge by the administration. The bridge is situated in the Bahadurganj block of the Kishanganj district, close to Bansbari village, at Shrawan Chowk.

“We have written to the department after regularly monitoring it,” Shrawan Sahni, executive engineer of the rural works department (RWD), said, adding “We visited the site on Wednesday evening and later traffic movement on it was stopped completely”.

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Circle officer (CO) Ashish Kumar said, “The traffic on the bridge has been stopped and guards have been deputed. The bridge was already damaged and only light traffic was allowed.

“Due to torrential rains in the catchment areas of Nepal, the Mariya River got flooded and one portion of the bridge gave way,” the CO said. “The bridge was already in need of repairs and the department concerned has already been intimated.”

The collapse of the bridge at Kishanganj coincided with an investigation by experts into the cause of the collapse of a bridge in the nearby Araria district. Just before its inauguration the 183-metre bridge in Araria—which was constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 12 crore—collapsed on June 18.