Gujarat : Floods Wash Away Vital Bridge Connecting Songadh and Dang

Vyara : A bridge connecting Songadh in Tapi district to the tribal dominated Dang district has been washed away due to heavy rains and floods on Friday. A portion of the bridge at Amalgundi village in Songadh taluka in Tapi district washed away closing the road connecting Bandharpada to Temka in Dang. 

Locals said that it is an important road connecting Dang from Vyara to Bandharpada-Temka in Songadh. As the bridge has been washed away, the locals from Dang and Songadh will have to take a detour of more than 10 kilometres to travel to and from Dang and Songadh. 

The residents in Dang and Songadh have called that if the road is not started on the war footing, they will be forced to carry out agitation and protest. This is the lone route which connects Songadh and Dang. 

Due to massive erosion of the bridge, the construction of the road has been carried out on a war footing by theTapi district administration. Since it is raining heavily, the construction workers are facing difficulties in restoring the bridge. 

Heavy rains in Tapi in the last 24 hours have flooded the dams and small check dams. In the last 24 hours it has been raining in Tapi, people are facing hardships in the low-lying areas, while the water has started receding.

Ramesh Gamit, a resident of Songadh said, “The bridge  has been washed away due to poor construction material used by the contractor. The contractor and the officials of the taluka panchayat are responsible for the collapse of the bridge in the first heavy rain. The bridge had gaps and was not repaired due to which half of the bridge was washed away”