A bridge at Chilambo stream on the Kalambo Falls Road in Mbala has again collapsed following the washing away of the steel culverts and logs due to heavy rains.
Mbala District Commissioner, Best Kabulembe who conducted a spot check in the company of the Acting District Works Supervisor, Davies Mulenga confirmed this to ZANIS today.
Mr. Kabulembe said the collapsing of the bridge has made the road from Mbala to Kalambo Falls and other surrounding villages become impassable.
He said the bridge which was last worked on in 2013 with K5,000.00 funding from the Provincial Disaster and Mitigation Unit collapsed last night due to heavy moving equipment that were working on the road weakening the infrastructure.
The District Commissioner has appealed to motorists to temporarily stop using the Kalambo Falls road until further notice.
During the inspection, the District Commissioner found one truck laden with bags of charcoal destined to Mbala township marooned on the other side of the stream.
What do you expect? Do we even know how to inspect these bridges?
whats going on mu zambia kansi?,, bridges collapsing, kwacha collapsing,, president collapsing,,, what the heck is going on??
Ifintu ni lungu. Kwacha will bounce back, bridge will be constructed with durable materials and will last a test of time. Our beloved president is in South Africa and he is working day and night. People we have a very hard working president. Look we have never had a president suffer from fatigue meaning that the president is the most hard working president zambia has ever hard. Lungu will bring development everywhere and that is why he has the best team of ministers and district commissioners. People vote for Lungu come 2016. Ifintu ni lungu fye bane.
The amount spent to repair was too little that’s why caonaikile K5000.00 what can you do with that kind of money, shoddy works.
It’s a joke right? K5000? That’s less than $1000!! What works, what works. Weep my beloved country
Case of poor workmanship and substandard materials coupled with what Mei Matungu @ 1 observes! How come other bridges built by the colonialists are still holding?
The Wiki entry on Kalambo falls says that it is one of the most important archaeological sites in Africa. Going on to state that tools dating back to 300,000 BC have been excavated on the Kalambo falls site.
Everyone seems to know the importance of this place except we Zambians.
Everything is falling in the country?
God help us……
Ndobo, spot on! Everything is collapsing in Zambia. The bridge also suffered fatigue traces brought about by the narrowing of the water flow pipe underneath it, so it could not stand the water pressure! What a parallel to some experience we have just had the past weekend!
The indictment on our country as a system in reverse is evidenced by that mere fact that you have evacuated the President for treatment of a condition or ailment that was competently handled 30 years ago at the same hospital that now stands only as a super-referral center. Notice how incompetence shines: on the one hand the culprit was the heavy rain and on the other it was heavy equipment using the bridge. It beggars belief how we can develop with such attitudes.
it is about time Engineers were held accountable for shoddy works. Dont just blame contractors. Engineers have a responsibility too!
The report clearly says: “The bridge … collapsed last night due to heavy [earth(?)] moving equipment working on the road…!” and somebody wants to shift the blame onto Engineers when the reason for the collapse is right in front of you! Do you expect Engineers to be policing the roads to ensure that there is no overloading on roads and bridges? Remember ALLL structures are designed to carry certain MAXIMUM loads. If you exceed that load then you only have yourself to blame, period! Fyonse ati ni Engineer, give us a break.