The Gujarat government has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the bridge collapse incident in Gujarat’s Morbi city, in which 97 people have died so far. Officials said rescue operations were on in the Machhu river and the death toll could rise further. Doctors at the government hospital have told local media that so far the bodies of 45 children have been recovered. About 70 percent of the total death toll. Morbi’s government hospital has released a list of 47 dead.
Municipal commissioner Rajkumar Beniwal is going to head the inquiry panel. Before leaving for Morbi, he told local media, “All the team members will reach the tragedy site on Sunday and start the investigation. The team’s first task is to find out the cause of the suspension bridge collapse and find out based on the findings.” The SIT will also give suggestions to avoid such incidents in future.”
He said there are four technical experts who are part of the team, who are good at structural design and quality control, and would collect samples of the bridge as well as its quality to be checked whether the proper standard was maintained or not.
Beniwal said the statement of the contractor engineer would be recorded and documents of various certificates would be recovered to know whether quality clearance was taken at every stage and whether the material was sent for testing or not.
He said that the certificate of the bridge designer will also be sought, whether it has been approved by any government agency or not.
The government has not given any time frame to complete the investigation and submit the report, but the official said that they aim to complete the investigation at the earliest and submit the report to the state government. PLC/GT
