ISLAMABAD, Oct 20: The Pakistan Railways has hired foreign experts for carrying out surveys of underwater structures of its bridges countrywide following the recent collapse of the Ran Pathani Bridge, which crippled railway link between Karachi and the rest of the country for almost a month.

The railways authorities disclosed this in a meeting of the National Standing Committee on Railways here on Friday.

The committee directed the Railways Ministry to ensure that the survey was completed as soon as possible to avoid more bridges from collapsing in future.

It asked the ministry to ensure that each and every bridge was repaired and was 100 per cent fit to carry the weight of running trains.

A large number of railway bridges had completed their life but were still being used, which posed a great danger to the lives of passengers, the committee observed.

Some members of the committee said that the image of the Pakistan Railways had suffered a severe setback and it has faced huge financial losses due to the incident of Ran Pathani and other recent accidents in which a large number of people had also been killed.

A member remarked that it seemed as if negligence had become the hallmark of the Pakistan Railways and passengers never felt safe in travelling.

He said that people cancelled reservations worth millions of rupees when the Ran Pathani Bridge collapsed and that the railways should disclose financial losses which it suffered due to the collapse of the bridge.

Pakistan Railways’ authorities informed the committee that due to massive sand and gravel mining in the upstream riverbed and silting up of spans of Ran Pathani Bridge caused its collapse.

The committee asked the railways officials as to why their engineering staff had failed to point out any abnormalities in the bridge during their periodical monitoring and inspections.

The officials replied that the engineering staff and the inspectors of the federal government had informed the divisional superintendent concerned to carry out necessary repair work on the bridge on time.

But, the divisional superintendent failed to take timely action which resulted in the bridge collapsing.

They informed that the divisional superintendent and officials responsible had been suspended for their negligence.

The committee directed the ministry to classify its bridges into various categories and immediately remove those which had completed their lives.