Engineering experts are delivering opinions on a flyover railway bridge that collapsed, killing fourteen, in Kolkata, India. Panduranga Rao, of the IVRCL Construction Company in charge of the flyover, said to media, “It is nothing but God’s act. About 70% of the construction work was completed properly. The experts regularly monitored the progress of the project…It is a total act of God. This has never happened before, we are also in shock.
Details have emerged that say the tender was handed down in 2009 to IVRCL Construction. Since then the problems with planning and tender corruption led to the flyover’s collapse, say engineering experts.
The project – which was pushed back substantially due to delays – is part of a 1.6 mile (2.5km) flyover that would minimize the amounts of traffic in Kolkata’s Burrabazar area, according to Mid-Day.com.
At the Indian Institue of Technology-Kharagpur, Joy Sen of the architecture faculty said, “Phasing of construction and time and use of materials are interlocked. If these things are not done on time, then construction like these which are exposed to weather becomes very risky.”
This will bring up many questions about the safety and security of construction sites in India. Sen added, “They have a time schedule and you cannot delay with these projects. You need proper planning and you can’t play with human lives.”
Tenderpreneurship gone wrong or an act of God, either way, an engineering feat has caused deaths and that is never a good thing.
