Experts Blame Designing Flaw, Not ‘Act Of God’ For Kolkata Flyover Collapse

Kolkata: After visiting the accident spot on Friday, experts said that a designing flaw has led to the collapse of the flyover in Kolkata, dismissing the construction company’s argument that the incident was an ‘act of god’.

Structural and civil engineers with decades of experience in building bridges across the country said that a structural flaw of a T-shaped pillar, technically a cantilever pier, led to the collapse. A cantilever bridge rests on structures that project horizontally into space only on one end.

Achyut Ghosh, a bridge expert and visiting professor at IIT Kharagpur, Jadavpur University and IIEST in Shibpur, said: “The design of the pier head (the t-junction) was inadequate. The arms simply buckled under pressure of the steel and concrete”. “The bridge was yet to be inaugurated, and therefore, there were no pressure of vehicles that a functioning flyover carries. This proves that it was simply a design failure. This was preventable. It can’t be called an accident” he further added.

Arun Chakravarti, professor of IIEST, Shibpur said: “It appears to be a technical failure. What was running on two pillars (at the start of the bridge) has converged on to one pillar. But this single pillar did not have adequate strength”

Civil engineer Snehasis Sinha alleged that there could have been serious lapses in quality control and even execution. “Apart from the flawed design there could be compromise in quality of materials and even lapses on the implementing authority’s part while the flyover was being built. There could have been lapses in monitoring and checking,” he said.

At least 25 people were killed and 100 were injured and some others are still feared trapped as a portion of a flyover under construction collapsed on a congested road intersection in Girish Park area of Kolkata on Thursday, crushing people and vehicles.