SPECIFICATIONS

Earlier time:
 Bridges were built under a design build type of contract.
 Lump sum price concept.
 No specifications for bridge standards.
 Whole work was done on integrity, education and experience of the builder.
 Resultantly, some bridges were good and some very poor.
 Nearly, one in four bridges failed.

Incident of Ashtabula Creek at Ashtabula on 29th December, 1876.

 Failure of 175ft (48m) long iron bridge.
 80 people died.

Investigation of failure of bridge revealed

 Number of short comings in design and construction.
 Designer had limited design experience

Results

 In 1894, Theodore Cooper proposed his original concept of train loadings and that
became standard in 1903 when adopted by the American Railroad Engineering
Association. (AREA).
 On December 12, 1914, American Association of State Highway (AASHO) was formed.
 In 1965, AASHO became the American Association of State Highway and
Transportation Officials in order to consider all modes of transportation like airways,
waterways, light rail, subways, tunnels and Highways.
 In the beginning Working Stress Design (WSD) also known as Allowable Stress Design
Method was used.
 Load Factor Design (LFD) was introduced in 1970 by considering uncertainties in loads.
 In 1986, Load and Resistance Factor Design method was established.
 In 1994 AASHTO gave first edition of the bridge design by LRFD specifications.
Report favouring Shershah bridge collapse accused
rejected

KARACHI, Feb 19: A sessions court on Saturday dismissed a

reinvestigation report which had recommended exoneration of all
the accused facing trial in the Shershah bridge collapse case.

The chairman of the National Highway Authority, along with some serving
and retired officials and directors of a private consultant company, has been
charged with showing negligence during the construction of the bridge that
collapsed in Sept 2007.
On Oct 13 last year, the court was informed through an application that on a
request of the NHA chief, the city police chief had constituted a three-member
board in August last to examine the record of the investigation and formulate
their recommendation whether grounds existed for carrying out a
reinvestigation.

The board had unanimously recommended the reinvestigation of the case

stating that the investigation officer did not consult the accused properly and
submitted a charge-sheet without waiting for the technical advice of experts in
the alleged offence. On Sept 9, 2010 the reinvestigation of the case was
assigned to DIG (Investigation), it stated.

On Oct 30, 2010, Investigation DIG Iftikhar Hussain Tarrar, who headed the
inquiry board, submitted the reinvestigation report, which (supplementary
charge-sheet) states that during the reinvestigation the supervision staff and
contractors were found innocent and therefore all the nine officials of the
NHA and the Engineering Consultants International Limited (ECIL) could not
be charge-sheeted since no evidence came up on record against them.

Additional District and Sessions Judge (west) Gulshan Ara Chandio, who was
conducting the trial, dismissed the reinvestigation report and observed that
the report was very much similar to the final charge-sheet as it had no
additional evidence against or in the favour of the accused.

The court observed that the IO placed the accused in the Column No 2, but
failed to give any solid evidence to justify this.

NHA chairman Chaudhry Altaf Ahmed, ex-chairman retired Major-General

Farrukh Javed, Member Operation Raja Nowsherwan, General Manager
(construction) Mohammed Yousaf Barakzai, ex-GM retired Colonel Tahseen-
ul-Haq, former member planning Syed Najamul Hassan, and directors of the
ECIL Zaheer Mirza, Khaild Mirza and Naveed Mirza are nominated in an FIR
registered on the orders of the apex court on April 7, 2010.

Meanwhile, the court also dismissed the acquittal application moved by Raja
Nowsherwan under Section 265-K of the criminal procedure code.

The hearing was adjourned till March 19 for evidence of witnesses.

According to the prosecution, five people were killed and 14 others injured
when a portion of the Shershah bridge built on Northern Bypass collapsed on
Sept 1, 2007. The accused were booked in the case for their alleged negligence
committed during the construction of the bridge.

A case (FIR 181/2010) was registered against the accused under Sections 322
(punishment for qatl-bis-sabab), 431 (mischief by injury to public road,
bridge, river or channel), 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty
rupees), 337-H (punishment for hurt by rash or negligent act) and 34
(common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code at the SITE police
station.Earlier, the first investigation officer, Inspector Khalid Kahn, had
submitted the final charge-sheet, which stated that the accused were held
responsible by a preliminary inquiry conducted by the Prime Minister's
Inspection Team.

The IO had placed 72 witnesses in the charge-sheet, but he did not charge-
sheet Raja Nowsherwan for lack of evidence.

However, the court considered that sufficient evidence was available against
Nowsherwan and indicted him along with others on Sept 2, 2010. All the
accused pleaded not guilty and opted to contest the charges.