MOGHBAZAR-MOUCHAK FLYOVER One killed, two injured as girder collapses [ Tritiyo Matra News ]

MOGHBAZAR-MOUCHAK FLYOVER One killed, two injured as girder collapses

Local March 14, 2017

A worker was killed and two others, including a Local Government Engineering Department engineer, were maimed as a girder of Moghbazar-Mouchak Flyover collapsed on rail track in Malibagh level crossing area in Dhaka early Monday.
Agitated local people chased Toma Construction employees, who were constructing a portion of the flyover, after the accident occurred at about 2:00am.
Police later brought the situation under control.
Following the accident, rail communications between Dhaka and the rest of the country had been snapped and traffic through the level crossing had been suspended for about four hours until 6:00am, when fire-fighters removed the girder from the rail track.
Fire service officials said that the pillars adjacent to the rail line were set up at long distances which might have caused the collapse.
Local Government Engineering Department and Bangladesh Railway formed two probe committees to investigate the incident.
Presiding over the weekly cabinet meeting, prime minister Sheikh Hasina expressed concern over safely situation at the flyover construction site.
She ordered enhanced safety measures immediately as a state minister’s ‘relatives and friends’ were reportedly behind the construction firm Toma, said a minister.
Toma Group chairman Md Ataur Rahman Bhuiya said that the girder collapsed when the workers were trying to set another girder beside it.
Replying to a query, he said that state minister for textiles and jute Mirza Azam had no share in the group. ‘Mirza Azam is just my childhood friend,’ he added.
Local people said that they woke up hearing a striking sound of the collapse and at first they thought of earthquake but later came to know about the accident.
Local people rescued three injured, working at the site, and rushed them to Dhaka Medical College Hospital.
They said that they had to cut off the right leg of one Mohammad Swapan, 42, a daily basis worker of Toma Group, to rescue him and take him to the hospital.
Mohammad Swapan, son of Md Azimuddin of Kumarpur under Pakundia in Kishoreganj, succumbed to his injury at the hospital at about 3:15am, said Ramna police station sub-inspector Md Alauddin.
Physicians amputated the right leg of LGED assistant engineer Palash Borun Dhar in the afternoon, confirmed flyover project executive engineer Sushanta Kumar Paul.
Physicians also amputated the right leg of Toma Construction driver Nur-un-Nabi Helal.
On the spot two pieces of the collapsed girder were found just beside the rail line where it was collapsed across the line.
Some of the sleepers of the rail track also subsided due to the accident.
Local people alleged that no safety measures were taken during construction work and all officials of Toma Construction went into hiding.
Fire service’s Khilgaon office senior station officer Md Nazrul Islam said that they reached the spot at about 2:30am and found a girder, about 80-feet long and 8-feet wide, on the rail track in Malibagh level crossing area.
‘Witnesses said a girder fell off when the workers of Toma Group were trying to set the girder with a crane,’ he said.
Toma group staffs came back after the police managed the crowd and four fire-fighting units had cut and removed the portions of girder with two cranes provided by the group, he said.
Fire-fighters completed the work at about 5:45am and both traffic and train movement resumed after 6:00am, he said.
Nazrul said that according to his observation, the flyover’s pillars were at long distances which might have caused the accident.
The flyover is being constructed under three parts – Simplex-Navana JV is constructing the flyover’s Moghbazar intersection, MCCC-Toma JV Ltd is constructing the Mouchak intersection part while Banglamotor-Moghbazar-Mouchak interconnection portion is being constructed by MCCC-SEL-UDC JV.
Visiting the spot in the afternoon, Dhaka South city mayor Mohammad Sayeed Khokon said that a three-member probe committee, led by local government engineering additional chief engineer (implementation) Md Abul Kalam Azad, was formed to investigate the accident.
‘The committee will submit the probe report within very short time,’ said the mayor without giving any specific time.
He said that the government would take tough actions against the people responsible and the victims would be compensated accordingly.
Referring to local government engineering chief engineer Shyama Prosad Adhikari, he said that the construction farm ensured safety measures in the construction yard.
He also said that local government minister Khandker Mosharraf Hossain had asked the authorities concerned to take more safety measures at the construction yard.
During the mayor’s visit, no officials of Toma Construction were found on the spot.
Bangladesh Railway Dhaka divisional manager Md Arifuzzaman said that although the collapsed girder blocked the rail track for four hours, the trains were late by only one hour and a half as no train was scheduled for running through the level crossing between 2:00am and 4:30am.
A three-member committee was formed to find the reasons of and damages by the accident, he said, adding that the committee was asked to submit the report in 24 hours.
Lack of safety gears and poor traffic management had earlier caused fatal accidents that killed at least three construction workers of the project at the construction site of the flyover.
The High Court on March 26, 2016 asked the authorities concerned to take adequate safety measures in the Moghbazaar-Mouchak flyover area following the death of a worker at the construction site.
In November 2012, 15 people were killed and several were injured when three huge girders of the under-construction Bahaddarhat Flyover collapsed in Chittagong port city.