By soman baby
Published: 11th July 2007
WORK on properly fencing Bahrain’s “suicide bridge” is to start shortly, it was revealed yesterday.
Tenders for the project will be out next month, for work on new designs submitted by Ismail Khonji Associates, said Works and Housing Ministry Assistant Under-Secretary for Roads Essam Khalaf.
Work on the project is expected to start within 10 weeks, he told the GDN.
Two people in three months committed suicide by jumping from the footbridge into traffic below on the King Faisal Highway, near the Intercontinental Regency Bahrain, on the Manama seafront.
By soman baby
Published: 11th July 2007
WORK on properly fencing Bahrain’s “suicide bridge” is to start shortly, it was revealed yesterday.
Tenders for the project will be out next month, for work on new designs submitted by Ismail Khonji Associates, said Works and Housing Ministry Assistant Under-Secretary for Roads Essam Khalaf.
Work on the project is expected to start within 10 weeks, he told the GDN.
Two people in three months committed suicide by jumping from the footbridge into traffic below on the King Faisal Highway, near the Intercontinental Regency Bahrain, on the Manama seafront.
“We have been instructed by Interior Minister and Traffic Board chairman Shaikh Rashid bin Abdulla Al Khalifa to make the footbridge suicide-proof, following the tragedies,” said Mr Khalaf.
“We, therefore, asked the bridge’s designers Ismail Khonji to redesign the bridge and make it as safe as possible.
“The company submitted several designs and we selected one of them.”
The project is now in the tendering stage, said Mr Khalaf.
Manama Municipal Council also earlier urged the Works and Housing Ministry to fence the “suicide bridge”.
Indian salesman Hamza Maheen, aged 47, leaped to his death from the bridge in January.
He smashed through the windscreen of an oncoming car on the highway below, injuring the Bahraini couple inside.
In April, painter Ashokan Vamoora, 41, died instantly when he was run over by a car as he plunged from the bridge onto the highway.
The Bahrain Centre for Human Rights, the Bahrain Health and Safety Society, senior officials of the Traffic Directorate, and doctors at the Salmaniya Medical Complex accident and emergency department all expressed safety fears about the bridge, following the incidents.
soman@gdn.com.bh
© Gulf Daily News