Pillar of small bridge caves in at Bihar's Bhagalpur

Bhagalpur: A pillar of a small bridge subsided in Bihar's Bhagalpur district on Friday, following which traffic movement on it was stopped, an official said.

No one was injured in the incident, he said.

Notably, more than a dozen bridges and causeways collapsed in several districts in Bihar recently.

"The incident happened at around 6 am on Friday when one pillar of a small bridge over a road, which connects the Pirpauti-Babupur area with Bakharpur Road, slightly went down. Not the whole structure," the District Magistrate (DM) of Bhagalpur, Nawal Kishor Choudhary, said while speaking to PTI.

"Soon after the incident, traffic movement on the bridge was stopped. Technical experts have been engaged in repairing the damage," he said.

An enquiry has been ordered to ascertain the exact cause of the incident, the DM said.

According to locals, the bridge was constructed by the Road Construction Department of the state government a few years ago.

Earlier, incidents of small bridges collapsing were reported in Siwan, Saran, Madhubani, Araria, East Champaran and Kishanganj districts.

Commenting on the incident, RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav in a post on X wrote, "Another bridge collapsed in Bhagalpur. In Nitish Kumar's regime, the roots of corruption are deep but the foundation of bridges is weak. The state witnessed the collapse of several bridges, constructed at the cost of several crores, in the last 2-3 months."