A tale of a bridge at an important juncture    

That the beam of the bridge has developed cracks is no news. What is news is the stacking of sand bags in huge quantities under the bridge to support it. The picture of the bridge has been carried in at least a couple of newspapers now. But the story is missing. Only a caption is there under the pictures. Yes, pictures say what thousands of words cannot tell at times. This picture too is forceful enough in the message it conveys but had there been just a handful of details such as how old the bridge is and who provided the sandbags and why, the readers could consider themselves enlightened about the matter.

Actually it was a horrible shock to see the picture. It is not an ordinary bridge in a remote area where the road is sparsely negotiated. Rather, it is one of the busiest in the country -the Dhaka-Aricha highway and the location of the bridge is also very important. At Sutipara under Dhamrai, the bridge bears the brunt of almost non-stop long route buses that travel between Dhaka and northern and south-western districts of the country, trucks, covered vans and other vehicles.

Bridges on such an important highway naturally develop wear and tear. But here the issue is the beam which along with pillars actually holds the bridge together. If the beam gives in, the bridge will collapse. Now the question is, if the beam has developed cracks well before the normal time. When such bridges are constructed, the builders or engineers calculate mostly precisely the longevity of those. The roads and highways division are likely to plan accordingly their replacement by constantly monitoring those.

Instead, a makeshift arrangement has been made in order to avert accidents. This is naivety at its worst. Sandbags are used for checking river erosion. Who has ever heard of the use of those for supporting a bridge? The crack points have become visible from outside. And the sandbags have been placed underneath the crack areas. But maybe, other parts or sides of the bridge have also become equally or more vulnerable. When two or more loaded trucks pass the bridge side by side, the pressure may prove too much for it and it may come crumbling. On highways vehicles run in high speed and a chain of collisions among several vehicles cannot be ruled out unless luck favours passengers travelling the spot at that particular moment.

How the roads and highways division could ignore the issue so long -even after the publication of the picture a few days ago -- is bewildering. When will the authorities in this country become sensitive enough to such issues of public safety? Hopefully, the bridge in question has not followed the many others which have either collapsed or fallen to disuse immediately after construction. Even if it has got a short-lived longevity, the situation demands that an alternative arrangement were made as soon as possible for the thousands of vehicles to cross the spot before devising a permanent solution.

Well, the sandbags cannot be a solution to such a critical situation the bridge is in right now. Regular monitoring of roads, highways, bridges and culverts have to be ensured in order to avoid similar fate of other such facilities. Once the entire route becomes non-negotiable as the majority of the country's roads and highways have, there is no point assuring people those will be repaired soon. Assurances will neither be able to lessen the sufferings of passengers nor help avoid tragic accidents. All the people want to see is action in a planned way.