Jamuna embankment caves in again

Another 500-ft stretch breached in Sirajganj
The hard point of the town protection embankment suffered the second collapse in a week Friday, exposing the fragility of the huge wall built by Korea’s Hyundai only 12 years ago and intensifying threat to Jamuna Bridge structures.
While engineers are still probing the reasons behind last Friday’s breach of a 500-ft stretch of the hard point, another 500-ft portion near Gaila Shashan Ghat in municipality area was washed away by the Jamuna river Friday afternoon.
Western end of the Jamuna Bridge was only eight kilometres away from the damaged portion of the Brahmaputra Right Embankment (BRE) which includes the town protection wall hard point.
The embankment was built between 1995 and 1999 by Hyundai Corporation at a cost of Tk 332 crore to control Jamuna river flow and protect Sirajganj and adjacent areas on the western bank of the river from erosion.
‘The Jamuna Bridge and its guide embankment on both sides are under threat,’ BWDB director general Abul Kalam Azad said a day after the July 10 collapse.
His fears were ruled out by communications minister Syed Abul Hossain, who visited the site the next day and asserted that the Jamuna Bridge and its guide embankments on both ends would be safe for the next 100 years.
The latest breach of the town protection embankment has posed fresh erosion threats to hundreds of people living in the municipality areas of Gaila, Kolegaila, Amlapara and Ekdala as well as adjacent villages.
Locals said BWDB’s half-hearted responses to emergency needs were responsible for the second collapse in seven days.
Bangladesh Water Development Board engineers and workers with the help of local people were seen dumping geoTex, sandbags and concrete blocks to check erosion, but the stopgap measures failed to ease off the local people’s fears of further breach and erosion.
Water engineers also sounded less confident.
Motahar Hossain, executive engineer of BWDB’s design section, who was on the spot Friday said, ‘Although we knew that there might be further incident of erosion of guide-embankment at the hard-point adjacent to the previously-damaged site due to uncontrollable scouring-holes, but we had nothing to do. We also have a plan for strengthening the slope of the damaged part, but Jamuna River did not give us time.’
Reached by mobile phone, BWDB additional director general Habibur Rahman Zinnah, who heads the government’s probe body, said Friday afternoon, ‘I have just heard about the second incident and started for Sirajganj to see the extent of damage.’
The Korean builder gave a 100-year guaranty, but a 100-ft portion of the embankment’s western side collapsed due to ‘scouring holes’ even before the company handed over the embankment to the BWDB, officials said.
‘And the same thing happened after 12 years due to the same reason,’ BUET professor and probe committee member Dr. Monoar Hossain said Thursday after visiting the damaged site, adding that BWDB does not have the necessary equipment for the bathymetric survey to detect scouring holes.
While senior water management officials argued that the Jamuna river course is unpredictable, local people blamed ill-maintenance of the local BWDB office for the repeated disasters. The BWDB woke up to the maintenance needs only after last Friday’s collapse and started dumping sandbags only to allow those to be washed away by the strong current of the rain-fed river, they alleged.
Some locals claimed divers, engaged after the July 10 collapse, detected some scouring holes and alerted BWDB people to those. But water officials ignored the alarm, leading to the second collapse, they alleged.
Hyundai company had also advised BWDB to conduct bathymetric survey frequently and keep aside a fund for maintenance works every year. But the top BWDB official earlier said they had not even felt the urgency for such check-up and maintenance for the last 10 years.
Water resources minister Ramesh Chandra Sen visited the damaged site Friday night and asked local BWDB officials to complete the investigation and report the ministry by Sunday. He warned that legal steps would be taken against Hyundai on the basis of investigation reports.

Courtesy of NewAgebd