Six students were injured on Saturday when a wooden suspension bridge in Samahni tehsil of Azad Jammu and Kashmir’s (AJK) Bhimber District collapsed as they were trying to cross it, a police official said.
Samahni police muharrar (clerk) Altaf Hussain told Dawn.com that “seven girls fell 10-15 feet before landing in the water below” as the ropes of a wooden bridge snapped while they were trying to cross it.
Six of the seven students were immediately shifted to the Tehsil headquarters hospital in Samahni for medical assistance, while the seventh was unharmed, Hussain said.
He added that none of the injured girls had any serious injuries, and that the bridge was in a poor condition.
AJK President Barrister Sultan Mahmood Chaudhry took notice of the incident, a statement from his office said.
He directed his government to take comprehensive measures and ensure that no such accident took place in the future.
Local journalist Amjad Aziz Kashar told Dawn.com that the bridge, built during the reign of former AJK prime minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat Khan from 1985-1990, had degraded and was in a “dilapidated” condition.
Kashar highlighted that local media brought the bridge’s condition to the attention of authorities several times, but no action was taken on their end. “The people had to repair the bridge themselves,” he said.
“The government should take immediate notice of the incident and through mutual communication with the people, this bridge should be repaired or rebuilt,” the journalist added.
In May last year, three labourers were killed while another was injured when the steel slab of a bridge they were trying to install fell into a river along the Neelum Valley road, officials said.
The incident occurred near Dhani village, some 35 kilometres northeast of Muzaffarabad.
In May 2018, six people drowned following the collapse of a footbridge over an icy water channel in Neelum Valley, while at least six others were missing.
The missing tourists, mostly young students, were among those who were standing on the footbridge when it collapsed.
