MADINAH, 5 August 2006 — Residents of Madinah were thrilled a year ago that the Al-Salam Bridge project was finally completed. But the thrill lasted less than a year after the inauguration of the bridge.
City officials discovered two weeks ago that the bridge had partially collapsed and decided to close it for safety reasons until the structure could be repaired.
“Thank God that the mistake was discovered on time before a disaster that might have happened,” said city resident Muhammad Ibrahim Idrees.
It took the municipality over two years to complete the bridge, which was open for traffic last Ramadan to much fanfare because the overpass eased traffic at one of the holy city’s major thoroughfares.
Another city resident, Mastoor Al-Hassani, said that this is a perfect sign that officials are not monitoring construction projects properly.
“The bridge did not even complete one year,” he said. “They were working on it for two years and still there was this engineering mistake. Now we have to bear with the traffic after the closedown of this bridge hoping that the mistake will be fixed at least before the month of Ramadan.”
Nawaf Al-Harbi, another local resident, said the bridge saved considerable time in his commute. “It used to take me more than half an hour to 45 minutes just to make a U-turn over the Al-Salam roundabout. With this bridge it took me a few seconds or maximum one minute.”
Al-Harbi accused city officials of not adequately monitoring the work of contractors.
