Risky railway bridges in Kulaura
Two railway bridges, over the river Fanai and the canal Rautgaon between Kulaura and Longla in Maulvibazar, are in a dangerous state of disrepair. The girders and sleepers of the railway track are loose, with many of the nuts and bolts missing. Despite this risky condition of the tracks, every day 22 trains travel this route between Sylhet, Dhaka, Chittagong and Akhaura.
The Rautgaon bridge is 15 ft long with only nine wooden sleepers, of which 5 are damaged. Each sleeper is supposed to be attached to the railway track with 8 clips, but some have only four clips and some have none at all. The sleepers are shaky and some have been attached in a makeshift manner with nails. An on-the-spot visit on Wednesday saw the entire bridge shaking when the intercity Parabat Express train crossed it en route Sylhet.
A resident of the village Rautgaon, Mashud Alam, said that the bridge is small but risky. A sleeper or track can be displaced at any time leading to a serious accident.
The Fanai Bridge is about 200 metres away from the Rautgaon Bridge. It is 45 ft long and 28 of its 58 sleepers are damaged. There are no nuts or bolts to join most of the girders and sleepers. In some places there were lengths of bamboo in place of the sleepers and many clips were missing too.
Alim Miah and Khandakar Lutfur Rahman of local villages said that the bridge has long been in such a dilapidated state but no repairs were carried out. They feel the bridge is risky and the sleepers needed to be replaced and secured.
The civil engineering department of Bangladesh Railways is responsible for the maintenance of the bridges. When a visit was made to the office of senior deputy assistant engineer, Mohammed Julhas, near the Kulaura railway station at three in the afternoon, he was absent and could not be contacted over mobile phone either.
Shebul Alim, leader of the civil engineering department’s key-men in charge of looking after the railway lines, said that some of the sleepers on the bridges were damaged. The sleepers were changed every few years and a note had been submitted for new sleepers. The nuts and bolts were checked every day and they would look into the matter if there was any problem.
Divisional engineer-2 of the railway’s Dhaka head office, Ahsan Jabir, told Prothom Alo that 1,000 wooden sleepers had been procured and would be placed along the railways lines at Sylhet where the sleepers were damaged. He said there were also plans to construct 180 railway bridges, big and small, in Sylhet division. He said that they would look into the matter of the two bridges in Kulaura and take immediate measures.