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Is it low quality material and corruption which has led to frequent collapse of newly built bridges in the state?<\/p>\n
However, Dr SP Sati, a leading geologist of \u00a0HNB Garhwal University, said that most of the rivers have become dumping grounds due to construction of CharDham Road and Rishikesh- Karanprayag railway line in the hills while in the foothills massive mining of the river beds had gone unhindered since the creation of Uttarakhand. He said that mining from the river beds increasing the flow of water and weakens the\u00a0 foundations of the pillars of the bridge, which happened at collapse of Rani Pokhri bridge on river Jakhan.<\/p>\n On the other hand, Uttarakhand government had been blaming the elements- such as cloud bursts and flash floods as reasons of such collapses.<\/p>\n Interestingly, river bed mining from all the rivers across the state has been the biggest money spinning venture from which politicians, bureaucrats, contractors and police officials have benefitted immensely.<\/p>\n \u201c The river bed mining has reached gigantic proportions starting from Yamuna in the east to Sharda river in the west of the state. Even the small streams and rivulets are not spared as huge money is involved,\u201d said Indresh Maikhuri, secretary of the Garhwal unit of CPI(ML).<\/p>\n A total of Thirty-four PILs have been filed in the Nainital High Court against rampant sand mining and the court has taken cognisance of the problem, but little has changed on the ground.<\/p>\n Experts and scientists point out that sand is a porous material that absorbs water thereby helping to reduce the flow of the water. However, when sand is removed from the river bed, the flow of water becomes faster and deadlier during heavy rains causing damage to life, property and bridges.<\/p>\n Uttarakhand state has been one of the worst disaster prone state\u2019s in the country being hit by cloud bursts, flooding, earthquakes, landslides and avalanches taking toll of lives and properties. The state faced the worst natural disaster in June 2013 at Kedarnath where more than 5000 people lost their lives in the deluge as thousands of road, hundreds of bridges, culverts, homes and buildings were washed away. Most of the bridges are yet to be rebuilt.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami personally supervised the damage caused by the heavy rain and cloud burst in Raipur area of Dehradun.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Another bridge collapsed, 38 bridges went down in past five years in Uttarakhand S.M.A.KAZMI Dehradun, Aug 20 Anoop Nautiyal, Chairperson and Founder of Social Development for Communities Foundation (SDC) and a concerned citizen of state of Uttarakhand tweeted following the collapse of another bridge in the vicinity of state capital Dehradun following heavy rains and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":2317,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,78,92,91,56,39,59],"tags":[646,649,648,647,102,370],"class_list":["post-2316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-economy","category-environment","category-featured","category-national","category-politics","category-tourism","category-uttarakhand","tag-bridge-collapse","tag-cloud-burst","tag-jakhan-river","tag-song-river","tag-uttarakhand","tag-uttarakhand-chief-minister-pushkar-singh-dhami"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/thenortherngazette.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/Doon-flood1.jpg\")
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