‘Don’t blame only rats for retaining wall collapse

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, May 14

Following the collapse of the retaining wall of the Gill Chowk flyover, engineers and architects have raised questions over its construction. One of the directors of Ludhiana Smart City Limited and chairman of Indian Institute of Architects Punjab Chapter, Sanjay Goel, said there seemed to be a major error in workmanship or execution during the construction of the flyover and its maintenance thereafter.

“It seems not only rats (mainly due to a big garbage dump nearby) but also water flowing down the flyover, that may have seeped into the earth under the wall, led to earth filling losing its compactness. The retaining wall was damaged not only on one side (noticed on Sunday) but also on the other, which was noticed on Monday. There seems to be no harm caused to the foundation. But the truth will come out after getting a report from a reputed structural consultant only,” he said.

President of Council of Engineers (a private organisation) Kapil Arora claimed the retaining wall had not collapsed due to damage done by rats but poor workmanship. “After carefully inspecting the entire span of the collapsed wall, it was found that the other end of the wall had bulged out by 6”. It clearly indicates increase in earth pressure from inside. The wall could not sustain the pressure and collapsed,” he claimed.