On Monday afternoon, a major section of a road close to Bilkhiriya village in Madhya Pradesh caved in, creating a crater 30 feet deep. The event took place between 12 and 1 pm, near the bridge connecting Mandideep to Intkhedi, as approximately 100 meters of the road collapsed.
Luckily, no injuries occurred as there were no vehicles on the road at that moment. A video depicting the collapse of a retaining wall gained widespread attention on social media, sparking worries about the state of the bridge built more than ten years ago and the quality of state highway construction.
An initial technical report links the collapse to damage in the RE wall on one side of the Sukhi Sewania Railway Over Bridge (ROB) on State Highway-18. Engineers are investigating if inadequate drainage, structural deficiencies, or insufficient inspections led to the wall's damage.
The route adjacent to Bilkhiriya village on the Bhopal Eastern Bypass is managed by the Madhya Pradesh Road Development Corporation (MPRDC) and links major roads to Indore, Hoshangabad, Jabalpur, Jaipur, Mandla, and Sagar.
Officials said that a team was being formed to examine the reason for the road collapse. The bridge was built in 2013 and the tender for the construction company, M/s Transtroy Pvt Ltd, was canceled in 2020 for failing to meet contractual obligations. Since then, no agency has been officially responsible for maintaining the stretch till now.
Barricades have been erected along the damaged stretch, and one side of the road has been completely closed to divert traffic on the route. Repair work and soil stabilization efforts began late Monday evening. The collapse has sparked renewed discussions about the standards of road construction in Madhya Pradesh.