Dhaneli Nala over-bridge to be demolished today
| Date :20-Oct-2020 |
Labourers engaged by the private mining company undertaking drilling work, on the slab of the bridge for blasting work.
Staff Reporter :
Raipur,
All traffic movement would remain totally suspended for over consecutive 4-hours on the ever-busy Raipur-Bilaspur National Highway at Dhaneli. For, a 63-meters long bridge constructed over Chokra Nala will be demolished by blasting under the supervision of officials from district administration, local police and National Highway (NH) Division of Public Works Department (PWD). The blasting was necessitated since the bridge constructed around 5 years ago has dilapidated. The bridge demolition work to take place on the intervening night of Monday and Tuesday will result in total suspension of all traffic movement on this stretch, which connects State Capital Raipur to Bilaspur via Dhaneli. According to official sources, it is for the first time, when mining explosives are being used to demolish a dilapidated bridge.
“For the past successive three days, work has been going on this 63-meters long bridge wherein 709 holes have been drilled to fill in with explosives, apart from laying the wires that would be connected with a remote control that would trigged the blast from a 100-meters distance from the bridge,” the sources said, adding further that around 80 kilograms of explosives have been brought in use for this purpose. Sources further said, the district administration in consultation with local police PWD NH division officials decided to suspend all traffic movement on and near both the old and new bridges, keeping in view of safety measures. “A private company with considerable experience in the field of mining blast was entrusted with the task of demolishing the bridge and for the past three days, they have been carefully carrying out pre-blasting work on the bridge,” the sources added.
For this purpose, according to the sources, the private company has pressed in their explosive experts and structural engineers to take up the blasting work of the bridge. “The team has drilled 709 holes to be filled with explosives just an hour before the blast. All these holes have been done near the solid structure of the bridge like girder and slab,” the sources said. The sources, however, underlined that the entire work of controlled-blasting has been done so meticulously that the impact of the explosion does not cause any damage to foundation pillars of the bridge. Moreover, the district administration has too hung up caution ‘public notice’ on the roads in both the directions alerting the motorists about the blasting work as well as suspension of vehicular traffic on the bridge.
“The blasting will take place sometime later on Monday night and restoration of normal traffic would resume to normalcy around 5 hours later on early Tuesday,” the sources informed. Meanwhile, sources also affirmed that the PWD NH Division will also initiate a probe to ascertain into factors that led to fast dilapidation of the bridge in a span of just 5 years.
The probe would zero in on the role of the then engineer of NH Division and construction agency, which built the bridge, they added. On the other hand, sources averred that the construction work for the new bridge at the cost of over Rs 2.5 crore would also begin soon. “The work would resume on the foundation pillar of the old bridge soon after the blasting work is done. The foundation pillars of the bridge are strong and the blasting work will just demolish the other visible structures and slab only,” the sources concluded.