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| Kollidam old steel bridge, Trichy, TN 1928.thehindu.com |
Above image: A section of British-era cast iron steel bridge across the Kollidam river in Tiruchirappalli. Built in 1928 in the place of an arched stone bridge that was washed away due to flooding prior to 1928.
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| old image Kollidam old steel bridge, Trichy, TN indiatimes.com |
The old steel bridge across the river Kollidam- a distributary of the Cauvery river connecting Srirangam island and the mainland of Tiruchirappalli is a historical one and has not been in use ever since a new modern bridge came up close to it in 2014. Initially, pedestrians and cyclists used the steel bridge and over a period of time after 2016 it fell into disuse due to lack of care and maintenance. Its stability was in question! Some sections of the bridge became structurally weak because of heavy flow of water in the river during heavy rains in the catchment area in the Kudagu region of Karnataka. Besides torrential rains also posed problems to the 90 plus year old steel bridge.
Citing the age of the steel bridge, the TN government had built a new and a wider bridge across the river in 2014, but the PWD failed to maintain the old colonial bridge, After 2016, this heritage bridge was left abandoned by the government officials and it appeared that they never understood the heritage value of such structures or bridges. Often they would let them rot if they fell into disuse, not caring about their historical value and responsibility of preserving them for the posterity. Since independence in many states, we've lost many heritage structures, monuments, etc., because of total neglect.
The 792 meter long cast iron steel bride is set on well-built 24 -stone piers across the Kollidam river during the colonial period in 1928. It used to connect the No 1 toll gate in Srirangam and until 2014 it was an important bridge connecting the city with places like Chennai, Salem etc. The entire cast iron steel bridge was made by " Braithwaite & Company Engineers Ltd " in England and the parts were shipped to the worksite via Madras harbor. Considering its durability and unique configuration, it was a land marl bridge in this town for a long time.
In August 2018 a couple piers _ 118th and 19th of Kollidam bridge collapsed and got washed away in the river. The incident happened because of sudden flow of 87000 cusecs of water released into the Kollidam river at Mukkombu barrage. here, at the barrage, 9 shutters got washed away in August 2018. Plans were afoot to construct a new barrage as the other one was pretty old. Roughly Rs. 387 crores was set aside for the new one.
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| Mokkombu barrage near tiruchy, TN tamil.news18.com |
This year in August because of heavy flow of water in the Cauvery river coupled with torrential rains according to sources, the 17 th pier of the damaged Kollidam steel bridge in disuse caved in due to strong water current.
As the old barrage at Mukkombu is centuries old, new one came up recently this year and the vents of the barrage across the Kollidam river were opened to release 68,000 cusecs of the excess water to both Cauvery and Kollidam rivers. The district administration gave a flood alert to the people living close to the rivers as the Mettur dam was full to the capacity and roughly 1.29 lakh cusecs of water was being discharged from the Mettur dam.
The old barrage at Mukkombu was designed and built by popular engineer Sir Arthur Cotton (May 1803 - July 1899) between 1834 and 1836. Later the bridge over the barrage was built in 1845. Engineer Sir Cotton built the famous the Dowleswaram Barrage across Godavari, AP in 1852.
https://www.deccanherald.com/national/british-era-steel-bridge-688427.html
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