Padma bridge construction: Abuzz with life, tinged with worry over coronavirus

It was a sunny spring morning last Thursday.

The construction site of the much-anticipated Padma bridge was humming with activity. With the relatively calm river beneath, around 30 workers were placing rods to make the base of a pier of the bridge.

Counting from the Mawa side of the river, this would be the 26th pier -- one of the four piers yet to be completed, and the last one to be finished.

The men were smiling and talking to each other as they worked. They were on the cusp of accomplishing a monumental task.

"Concreting over the metal base of the 26th pier will be done in two days and it will take around a month to construct the rest of the pier," one of several Bangladeshi engineers overseeing the work told this correspondent.

The task of driving into the ground the 294 piles supporting the piers was completed in July last year.

Over a kilometre away, around 40 workers and several Bangladeshi and Chinese engineers were working on the top level of the double-decker bridge. On the Janjira side of the bridge, over 600 metres of road was visible. The bottom level is for trains.

Over 3.7 km of the 6.15 km bridge is visible with 25 of the 41 spans installed. According to the revised deadline, the country's longest bridge will be open to traffic in June next year. It will connect the capital with 21 southern districts and is expected to boost Bangladesh's gross domestic product by 1.2 percent.

However, there was a palpable fear that the coronavirus outbreak would hamper the progress of the project.

The headquarters of the Chinese company building the bridge, China Major Bridge Engineering Co Ltd, is in Wuhan city, the epicentre of the coronavirus outbreak.

The outbreak started affecting the project and officials were worried that progress would suffer further if the situation in China did not improve soon.

The construction work and the river training are being carried out by two Chinese firms. Most of the construction materials are being imported from China.

Of the 980 Chinese citizens involved in the project, 332 went home to celebrate the Chinese New Year in mid-January. Most have not been able to return due to the outbreak, according to a government report.

Thirty-nine spans have arrived from China, 25 of which have been installed. But the company in China constructing the remaining two spans is currently closed due to the coronavirus outbreak.

At a press briefing at the Awami League party office in Dhanmondi on Saturday, Road Transport and Bridges Minister Obaidul Quader said the construction work of the bridge would be slightly affected if the coronavirus situation did not improve in "two months" and the employees were unable to return.

A senior engineer said the coronavirus "has started affecting our work".

"Most of those stuck in China are workers and that's why it is a problem," he told The Daily Star, requesting anonymity.

Various construction materials for the project are being imported from China and most of the source factories are based in Hubei Province, according to a finance ministry report on the potential impact of the virus on the economy.

"Regular import of construction materials is being hampered as many factories in China are now closed and the number of ships used for importing has decreased," the report said.

"If the situation lingers, the inventory management of the project could be hampered," it added. 

PADMA BRIDGE PROGRESS

Eighty-six percent of the bridge's construction and 70 percent of the river training works have been done, said Quader on February 26.

This correspondent found that construction of the first nine piers from Mawa was done. Two spans have been installed between piers 5, 6, and 7.

At Janjira end, road slabs have been installed between piers 38th and 42nd. On the top level, around 40 workers were busy installing more.

A total of 2,917 slabs will be installed on the bridge, an engineer said. The rail lines will be set under the Padma Rail Link project.