Awaiting answers, and action: Hold accountable those responsible for Morbi bridge collapse

Shubhadeep Choudhury in Morbi

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When the suspension bridge in Morbi reopened after remaining closed for a long time, Chirag (20), Dharmik (18) and Chetan (16) went to see it together on October 30. The three brothers lost their lives, along with 132 others, on the fateful day as the bridge came crashing down.

Their father Rajeshbhai, a labourer, has set up a tattered shamiana in front of his small house in Morbi’s Rohidas Para for those coming to pay their condolences. A steady stream of women keeps trickling into the dimly-lit house to meet his grief-stricken wife. One of these days, Rajesh will have to fold up the shamiana. Both husband and wife dread the moment when they will be left all alone to deal with the tragic loss. Rajesh has received Rs 12 lakh as compensation. The Gujarat government has announced Rs 4 lakh for the next of kin of each diseased, but he is waiting for those responsible for the mishap to be punished. “Both the state government and the company maintaining the bridge should be held accountable and taken to task,” says a heartbroken Rajesh.

The recently refurbished bridge, built by a local king over a century ago, had been under supervision of the Oreva Group since 2007. It had outsourced the most recent repair work to another firm. Owners of the firm, Prakash Parmar and Devang Parmar, have been arrested while Sandeepsinh Jala, chief executive of the Morbi municipality, has been suspended.

“During the refurbishment, no attention was paid to the decaying cables. These were simply given a fresh coat of paint,” says PA Zala, Deputy Superintendent of Police, who is also the investigating officer in the case. Among the nine persons who have been arrested, two are Oreva Group managers. However, no action has yet been initiated against its chairman Jaysukh Patel, who was present during the reopening of the bridge on October 26.

Patel is a member of the Patidar community which has a strong presence in the area. Locals say any action against him may upset members of the community, something dreaded by the BJP in Gujarat where Assembly elections are slated to take place next month. Riding on the wave of the Patidar agitation demanding reservation, the Congress had won three seats in the area, including Morbi, in the last Assembly elections held in 2017. The two other constituencies won by the Congress in the neighbourhood were Tankara and Wankaner.

Morbi, which was won by the BJP in 2007 and 2012, had gone to Congress’ Brijesh Merja in 2017. The victorious Congress candidate, however, later switched over to the BJP and won the 2020 byelection. He is now a minister in the state government.

Ahmedabad-based businessman Amit Trivedi, who was in Morbi with his underwater vehicle to assist in the search and rescue operations, claims that Patel and his Oreva Group are known for their philanthropic work. Dilip Barasra, editor of a popular news portal, Morbi Update, said the upkeep of the bridge was part of the group’s philanthropic activities. That, of course, in no way absolves it of criminal negligence.

According to teenagers Aviraj and Kaushik, there were far too many people on the bridge when it came crashing down. Some youths, they recall, were swinging the bridge laterally. Both escaped with minor bruises but their friend Anand (14) was not so lucky. “When the bridge collapsed, we were able to reach the river bank by clutching on to the remnants of the collapsed bridge but we couldn’t see Anand anywhere,” says Aviraj.

According to Anand’s father Nitin, the news of the bridge collapse spread like wildfire. He rushed to the local hospital and started searching for his missing son among the injured and the bodies being brought there. He finally located the body of his son at around 3 am on October 31.

Rakesh, an officer of the National Disaster Relief Force (NDRF) hailing from Hardwar district of Uttarakhand, says the incident made him worry about the famous hanging bridge over the Ganges, Lachhman Jhoola. The incident is a lesson that such hanging structures should be never swung for fun, he adds.

Besides immediate rescue operations by the locals, official agencies too moved in swiftly. A total of 97 persons were rescued by the teams, says KK Bishnoi, chief of the Gujarat State Fire Prevention Service.

Teams of the NDRF, State Disaster Relief Force, Army, Navy and Coast Guard took part in the operations. Inflatable rubber boats and high-density plastic boats fitted with underwater cameras were deployed. Before calling off the operations last Thursday, the riverbed was scanned with the help of a remotely operated vehicle, a robot armed with a camera and sonar and mechanical hands to lift weight up to 100 kg. Navy divers too searched for bodies in the river depths. A highlight of the operation was collaboration among agencies and the support of locals, who extended help and provided food to the rescue workers, numbering about 500, during all five days of the operation.