Rabindranath Biswas & Vikramaditya
Sri Vijaya Puram, Oct 01: The traffic on the Jirkatang to Middle Strait and vice -versa was severely disrupted owing to major cracks at the lower body/support of RK Nallah Bridge which is 10 km from the Middle Strait Creek today.
According to information, all types of vehicular movement came to a complete stand still after the compliance order from the South Andaman District Administration owing to the major cracks developed at the lower body of the RK Nallah Bridge.
However, it reportedly left about 280 tourist and about 100 tourist vehicle drivers stranded at the Baratang Island. Most importantly, the tourists who had planned their return journey by tomorrow’s flight found themselves in trouble.
The tourist operators and travel agents talked to STS officials if they could transport the stranded tourists along with the STS passengers but the STS officials reportedly showed indifferent attitude towards their plea by simply saying that they had no such orders.
However, the AATO President immediately talked to the Deputy Commissioner South Andaman and apprised him of the plight of the stranded guests and urged him to evacuate them with necessary arrangement. The AATO President also requested the DC to provide STS connecting bus service from Sri Vijaya Puram and from Baratang. Accordingly 5 STS buses from Sri Vijaya Puram and 5 buses from Baratang were pressed for evacuating the stranded tourists. All the tourists were safely evacuated by this STS Bus service and the tourists intending to catch tomorrow’s flight will now be able to make their return journey tomorrow, as per the report last came in.
By evening many other small vehicles also crossed the bridge due to especial arrangements made by the authorities by placing plates on the bridges and allowing one LMV to cross at a time.