Karachi Northern Bypass Bridge

Collapse
It was a massive Design fault and not the
error in the construction
For the first time Let the pictures tell you the real untold
story

To start with, just look at the length of this bridge span! Also, it is elevating
in a sharp circle. No where in Pakistan is a bridge this heavy with such large
span and such huge gap between pillars especially when the bridge is also
elevating and circling. The design Consultants was ECIL. See the road signs
in the picture below on the curve to warn the drivers of sharp bends.
 When there is such huge gap between support pillars and such sharp bend
and elevation, the structure would bend outwards and this is exactly what
happened when this first girder was poured. Where would the entire load of
this bridge come especially if it also starts to bend outwards? On the first
pillar which was near where you can see the minibus on the left of the
picture. You can’t see the pillar in this photo but what started to happen
during construction is shown below.
 Here you can clearly see that the first bridge span is tilted rightwards with
uneven weight distribution on the pillars. The pillar on the left has almost no
weight but the ones on the right are under extreme stress. You can clearly
see the gap between the sub-structure and the span on the left. This fault
came when this bridge was under construction. Work was delayed for over a
year because of this design fault which was making it impossible to balance
the weight of the bridge due to long span, elevation and sharp curve as we
saw in first photo. The consultants kept on trying various methods to
“repair” their design fault as you can see black carbon steel rods going
through the underside of the bridge span and scaffoldings for the repair job.
They tried hard to “lift” the span back to normal position but that did not
work. That also increased thousands of tons of weight on the bridge span
while the pillars were not designed for this extra weight. So instead of
acknowledging that their design had fault, they “repaired” and gave a go
ahead for the project. But the bridge was bending rightwards and became too
heavy due to “repairs”.
But the inevitable bending of the bridge to the right continued increasing the
pressure on one pillar on the extreme right of the above photo which finally
gave way. Note that the first pillar on the left of the photo has almost no
weight on it. But the pillar on the right was simply crushed as following
photo shows.
This one pillar in above photo was taking the entire load of the bridge due to
its bending right, increased weight of repairs, sharp curve, elevation and gap
between bridge pillar sub-structures. Also, the designers recommended
construction of speed breakers on the bridge to slow the traffic which further
increased weight and pressure on this single pillar on the extreme edge
where the bridge curved as you can see in the following photo now.

This photo gives you another very interesting but untold angle to the whole
disaster. The design of the bridge was radically altered to go around this
“Paracha textile mills” which is actually a Ghee factory ☺ !! The powerful
and well connected owner of the Ghee mill had the Consultants and the city
government change the design changed into a sharp curve and took a stay
order from the court. The powerful city government also did not get the stay
vacated nor put any pressure on the owner for the land and allowed a major
and high risk design change. In reality, this huge bridge was not even
required if this Textile/Ghee mill had been asked to give land for the
national project.

Now we come to the quality of construction as many people seem to believe

that it was the contractor NLC who had to be blamed for the disaster.
 The entire project Managers were also ECIL, the original designers. They
checked the quality of construction at every stage and gave “OK” reports or
“check reports” to the Contractors NLC for work to progress. NLC could not
progress even a day of work without NOC from the Consultants. The quality
and quantity of steel and concrete was tested and approved by the
Consultants at every step. That is why when the faults developed; the ECIL
accepted their mistakes as design faults, called in foreign consultants, and
paid for the repair job. NLC was given a clean chit by the ECIL themselves
and the NHA and their quality of work were never doubted throughout the
project. So when the bridge collapsed due to bending of the bridge and pillar
failure, not a single crack appeared on the span or the bridge structure itself.
It was too robustly built as the pics below show.
Now you be the Judge - Was it the dangerous Design or the
Construction which led to the collapse?