Lone bridge to Gangotri collapses

A 60-metre-long bailey bridge on the Gangotri-Dharasu national highway, which connects Gangotri with Uttarkashi district headquarters, collapsed for the second time within three months, cutting off accessibility to the shrine and Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) outposts on the India-China border. A bailey bridge is a temporary bridge of lattice steel designed for rapid assembly.

According to witnesses, the bridge with a load capacity of 18 tonnes collapsed at 10:30 am on Sunday when a truck filled with sand was crossing it. The incident which occurred just over a fortnight before the Char Dham yatra begins on April 18 has left the district administration racing against time to prepare an alternate route so the yatra is not disrupted.

Thousands of pilgrims use the bridge daily to reach the Gangotri shrine during the yatra season. The bridge built at a cost of Rs 2.5 crore also provides connectivity between Uttarkashi town and 80 villages nearby.


Local residents Bhramanand Nautiyal and Chandra Mohan Bhatt told TOI, “The bridge collapsed when a truck loaded with sand was crossing over it. The truck fell down along with the bridge but the driver and the vehicle were unharmed. We had been fearing such an incident as many of us had noticed the bridge trembling often over the past few days due to continuous movement of heavy vehicles.”

District magistrate Ashish Chauhan has launched an inquiry into the incident. “A committee has been set up to investigate the cause of the accident. At present, our priority is to restore traffic by developing an alternate route,” Chauhan said.