A hype comes crashing down

As rain poured down on the afternoon of May 19, Shamsudheen Kollenchery’s car sped along the service road beneath the under-construction elevated National Highway-66 at Kooriyad near Tirurangadi. The family was in high spirits, heading for a wedding in the family. But their joy was short-lived.

A loud thud shook the vehicle and boulders came crashing down, sending his world into chaos. The car screeched to a halt, one wheel stuck in a wide crack that had seemingly opened up out of nowhere.

“I thought the earth was shaking,” Shamsudheen, who runs a grocery shop at Kodinhi, recalls, his voice still laced with the shock of that moment. “Out of the blue, my car was stuck in a just-developed crevice and was partly covered under debris.”

His wife, Rasiya, and their children sustained injuries as they scrambled to escape. The scene above them was one of utter devastation. The highway’s eight-metre embankment had given away under the weight of rainwater, buckling and collapsing over a 200-metre stretch. The elevated road crumbled, causing gaping fissures in the service road below. Deep and wide cracks splintered the surface as the embankment’s foundation sank. A massive section of the embankment heaved upwards and created a long ridge of displaced earth, giving a stark testament to engineering failure.

Miraculously, the occupants of three other cars that happened to be passing beneath escaped with minor injuries as they fled for their lives leaving their vehicles behind. “I’m still in shock. My family escaped with just bruises,” says Mohammed Ajmal from Chelari. His voice trembled as he showed his bruised hands. “If the entire embankment had come crashing down on us, our fate would have been sealed,” he says.

The collapse left the people of Malappuram reeling in shock and anger. The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) and the contracting company, KNRCL, too received a massive jolt as the 77-km stretch of NH-66 in Malappuram was just days away from its formal inauguration.

The NHAI refused to acknowledge engineering failure in the initial stages. “Rainwater percolated through the unfinished surface and the embankment burst as it could not bear the weight,” explained NHAI project director Anshul Sharma to the District Collector and the people’s representatives, who heckled him with questions about the cause of the accident.

Several renowned engineers, including E. Sreedharan, former head of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation, and road engineering expert Anilkumar Pandala, were quick to refute the NHAI claim. “No one can wash their hands of the collapse by saying that the ground was not strong or too much rainwater entered the embankment. It’s a clear failure of construction. The truth is the embankment was not built to withstand the stresses it faced,” says Pandala.

Compromised quality

According to Pandala, cracks on the sidewalls and the linear cracks on the highway, which indicate problems of compaction, will be a major worry. He believes the collapse is likely a result of compromised quality standards and that the NHAI might have been under undue political pressure to expedite the project or cut costs.

“It’s a classic textbook case of bearing capacity failure, a type of failure where the ground simply cannot handle the weight placed on it,” says independent geotechnical engineering consultant Jayakrishnan Menon in an apparent response to the NHAI’s excuses.

“Constructing a raised embankment on soft ground like the paddy fields of Kooriyad was a recipe for disaster,” asserts Sreedharan. “A viaduct or bridge would have been the ideal solution for this terrain, providing the necessary stability and minimising the risk of collapse,” he feels.

Viaduct versus embankment

A viaduct, say experts, would have cost nearly four times as much as building an embankment with sidewalls, making the latter a more economical option. However, this cost-saving measure appears to have come at the expense of safety and durability, particularly in the region.

As a team of geotechnical experts appointed by the NHAI conducted a thorough examination of the collapsed highway, the Union Ministry of Road Transport and Highways acted swiftly by blacklisting the contracting company responsible for the Kooriyad project. Yet people’s anxiety mounted as reports emerged of cracks on the ongoing highway construction in Thrissur, Kozhikode and Kannur districts, raising fears of similar failures.

Fear mounts in Thrissur

A 50-metre-long crack on an overbridge at Manathala in Thrissur district was detected on May 20. Attempts by the contracting company to cover the crack with bitumen failed in heavy rains. The company then temporarily sealed the cracks with quarry dust, sparking fears about the structure’s durability.

Thrissur Collector Arjun Pandian has sought a report from the NHAI and formed an expert committee to examine the crack. The panel’s preliminary findings with inputs from the Geotechnical Engineering Department of Government Engineering College, Thrissur, and the PWD’s quality control wing were submitted to the NHAI. “We are awaiting the final report from the NHAI,” says Pandian.

The crack on the overbridge has spread fear among the people. “They are worried about the bridge’s safety. NH 66 carries a high volume of traffic, including heavy vehicles, and such a crack poses a major threat,” says Therlli Asoken, a Congress worker.

N.K. Akbar, Guruvayur MLA, slammed the contract company for hastily covering the crack on the overbridge without a proper scientific assessment. “The expert team appointed by the District Collector couldn’t carry out an excavation-based inspection, as the company said that digging into the road above the crack could cause water seepage and potentially weaken the structure,” he points out.

However, Akbar asserts that such an inspection is crucial to determine whether the soil beneath the cracked section had been adequately compacted.

Cracks abound in Kozhikode too

Cracks appeared on NH-66 at Ambalapadi and Thiruvangur in Kozhikode district too, raising concerns about the construction quality on the Vengalam-Ramanattukara stretch.

People protested when the contractors tried to fill the cracks. “The crack at Ambalapadi is in the centre of an underpass. If this is the construction quality, many areas may be damaged by the end of the monsoon,” says Jineesh Babu, a Congress worker.

A 400-metre-long crack appeared on a recently completed flyover at Thiruvangur, alarming local motorists. Although the contractor fixed the crack with bitumen, it soon became more visible. “The contractor says it will not be a safety issue, but we need a scientific inspection to verify the construction quality,” says C.K. Babu, a local resident.

M.K. Raghavan, MP, has urged the Centre to intervene and adopt precautionary measures at sites where cracks have appeared.

Houses flooded in Kannur

But for the people of Kuppam, near Taliparamba, in Kannur district, the under-construction NH-66 posed a different threat. On the night of May 20, a sudden downpour triggered panic at CH Nagar, Kuppam, as water and mud flooded homes and forced several families to flee.

A thunderous crash jolted 67-year-old M.K. Usman out of his sleep around 10.30 p.m. “I followed the sound in the dark and found my kitchen knee-deep in slush. Our vessels, furniture and even the bed were buried in mud,” he recalls. His house, about 100 metres below the work-in-progress highway, was the first to be hit.

The affected families blamed the firm Megha Engineering for ignoring their warnings, which led to disaster during the rains. “Our houses are on a 45-degree slope below the road. The contractor did not take any precautions, making it inevitable for rainwater and mud to flood our homes,” says Shabana Usman, a homemaker.

The agitated residents blocked the highway demanding remedial measures. “Our homes are on the edge. The unscientific construction methods employed by the authorities have wrecked our lives,” says M.K. Sajitha, another resident.

Scores of families along the NH-66 in Kasaragod, Kannur, Kozhikode, Malappuram and Thrissur districts have reported similar issues, with flooding affecting their lands and homes. “Rainwater from the raised highway gushes into my plot like a waterfall. My complaints with the NHAI went unheard,” says K.T. Shareefa, a homemaker, who lives near the collapsed highway at Kooriyad.

NHAI admits to lapses

The NHAI has admitted before the Kerala High Court that there were lapses in the embankment construction at Kooriyad. B.L. Meena, the NHAI’s Regional Officer, says that the Kooriyad issue will be rectified by replacing the collapsed embankment with a 400-metre-long bridge, which, according to him will be completed in four months.

The highway collapse also triggered a political controversy with the Congress terming it a case of massive corruption. The party leaders also took a dig at the CPI(M) leaders, especially State Public Works Minister P.A. Mohamed Riyas, who recently posted reels on the project.

But an unfazed Riyas says that he would continue to post reels as part of the government’s publicity efforts. “The Opposition is celebrating the highway collapse now, but they couldn’t implement the project when in power,” he retorts.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan used the opportunity to blame the Congress for celebrating the collapse and said that the NHAI will take remedial measures. BJP leaders found the road collapse hard to defend. Faced with a barrage of criticism, its State president Rajeev Chandrasekhar, who visited the site, said he would apprise Union Minister Nidhin Gadkari, who holds the portfolio of Road Transport and Highways, of the situation and find a solution.

The mishap has raised pertinent questions about the fate of one of the biggest infrastructure projects in the State. Even as the search for solutions and fixing the accountability of the mishap continues, the wait for the people of the State for a safe and navigable throughway continues.

(With inputs from Mini Muringatheri in Thrissur, Mithosh Joseph in Kozhikode, and C.P. Sajith in Kannur)