‘Poor-quality’ overhead bridge in Harbanspura crumples'

* Driver killed instantly as tonnes of concrete smash truck

* Construction company’s owner arrested on CM’s order

* Commissioner says dumper’s bed opened accidentally, hit beam of bridge

* Witnesses say beam too high to be hit

LAHORE: A truck driver was killed when an overhead pedestrian bridge on Ring Road in the Harbanspura area collapsed on Thursday.

About 30-feet-long unstable slab of the overhead bridge came down on a dumper truck. However, according to officials, the truck went out of the control and hit a pillar of the bridge. Tonnes of concrete crushed the front side of the vehicle, killing its driver Rana Sajjad, who belonged to Sargodha.

After the accident, rescue teams reached the spot and recovered the driver’s body from the debris after five hours of efforts. Rescue sources said that the teams used three cranes to remove the bridge’s rubble and its pillars to pull the truck out of it. Due to the bridge collapse, the traffic from airport to Harbanspura was suspended for hours, and people remained stuck in traffic on the side roads linking Ring Road and Harbanspura.

The incident spread panic in the city, especially among the motorists, about the safety of their lives, as the bridge collapse has put a big question mark on the quality of materials used in erecting such structures.

After the incident, Lahore Commissioner Jawad Rafique, DCO Noorul Amin Mengal and Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif reached the scene, and initially concluded that low-quality material was used in constructing the bridge.

On the directives of the CM, the police arrested the owner of the bridge construction company, Khalid Rauf. As per sources, the South Cantonment Police Station has registered an FIR under Section 302 against Khalid Rauf on an application filed by Colonel Muhammad Asim, the enforcement and maintenance director of the Lahore Ring Road Authority (LRRA).

It is worth mentioning here that the Lahore commissioner is also the chairman of LRRA, the executive authority responsible for all constructions on the Ring Road, which had given the contract for the construction of the bridge to Khalid Rauf’s company. Meanwhile, the CM has formed an investigating team of engineers, including C&W secretary, chief engineer (south) and the UET dean, to probe the incident with regard to the quality of material used in the bridge.

Commissioner Jawad Rafique told Daily Times that the vehicle involved in the incident was a dumper truck and its bed accidentally opened as it passed under the bridge. He said the bed hit the bridge’s beam, which collapsed due to the high impact of the collision.

However, witnesses said that many trucks carrying concrete, cement and sand pass under the bridge on a daily basis, and the incident of “accidental opening” of the dumpers’ bed and hitting the beam was not possible, as the bridge was more than 16 feet high.

To a question about the quality of construction material, the city commissioner said that if low-quality cement or iron was used in the material, all concerned departments would be held responsible.