Bridge across Godavari closed after 36 years

The bridge across the Godavari at Bhadrachalam, which completed 57 years on Wednesday, remained out of bounds for vehicular traffic since Thursday evening with the historic temple town, located on the banks of the Godavari, facing severe threat of flood.

The bridge is the vital road link connecting Bhadrachalam, the gateway to the vast tribal hinterland, with the district headquarters town of Kothagudem, the hub of coal production, and beyond.

The unprecedented floods in the Godavari forced the authorities to close the bridge for vehicular traffic from Thursday evening for a period of 48 hours, as a safety precaution.

Various stretches on the Bhadrachalam-Dummugudem and Bhadrachalam-Chintoor highways remained submerged under a sheet of floodwater, snapping road connectivity to Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Odisha for the third consecutive day.

Several concrete structures of the new bridge under construction, parallel to the existing bridge, got submerged owing to the massive floods in the Godavari.

Work on the new bridge commenced in 2015 to decongest traffic on the existing bridge, but it still remained incomplete, rued Swamy, a resident of Bhadrachalam.

Our repeated appeals to the government to ensure speedy completion of the new bridge and extension of the karakatta (flood bank) along the banks of the Godavari in Bhadrachalam fell on deaf ears, he alleged, demanding a lasting solution to their ordeals.