Life moves on: 24 Hours after the under construction bridge collapsed at Lucknow

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Here are some shots of the site of the under construction bridge which collapsed in Lucknow. Some are still photos and one video shot on my Nokia 2110C cellphone. An amateur work done to find out the situation at the site of the accident 24 hours after the accident happened on 30 September 2008. These visuals are taken on 01 October 1, 2008 at around 5:45 PM. I am writing this post after returning from the site at around 8:30 PM. Let me add that my house is within walking distance from the site of the accident.

The traffic movement on this National Highway No. 24 was moving as usual. Be it known that it is a very important road which connects Lucknow with a good number of districts in eastern Uttar Pradesh. Some of the districts being Barabanki, Faizabad, Devaria, Behraich, Gonda, Gorakhnpur, Basti etc. This is the road connecting to Bihar and even Nepal. The problem of people and the administration was further aggravated as the accident happened almost at the entrance of the city (municipal) limits of Lucknow (read capital of Uttar Pradesh).

The hustle and bustle is back. Vehicles are moving past the beam which fell yesterday, as they would have done even if the beam would not have fallen. The only thing different today was that every passer by was curiously looking at the fallen structure of concrete. A large number of people still stopped and tried to retrace what would have happened yesterday.

Some Police personals were posted at the site. They were driving people away, who were stopping by to have a look at the fallen beam. As their stopping by was making the road congested. They repeated the exercise of chasing people away at regular intervals. No TV camera, no Reporters and no rescue teams and above all no Politicians. All of them were back to their routines. No crying relatives of people injured or dead. All of them were absent. As expected.

Yes, the people who were otherwise conspicuously missing were the people from the construction crew of Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) who were away from this site possibly fearing a public backlash. Only the signage of HCC was there. On any ordinary day this signage would have signified the emerging strength of an economically liberalized India. The progressing India, the India growth story and the infrastructure boom etc. etc. But, today it signified gloom – a dark side of the ‘India growth stories’ which I have read in every newspaper and magazine. For a moment I too felt a La-Mamta Banerjee kind of feeling.

But, this is not the end. Today the traffic has returned to normal and tomorrow or may be some days after, the work at the site shall also begin. Leaving us with the reminiscences of what happened as an ‘unfortunate accident.’

The life moves on. So we have seen and so we shall see.