Victims of bridge collapse want R1.3m in damages

cape town - civil claims for damages for death and injury of over r1.3 million have been brought against an engineering firm and a government department following the collapse of the injaka bridge near bushbuckridge in the limpopo province four years ago.

fourteen people died, including three casual labourers, and 19 suffered serious injuries.

an inquiry led by larry kloppenborg, an inspector from the department of labour, recommended that vke consulting engineering of pretoria; concor holdings, the construction company; the department of water affairs and forestry; john bischoff, an engineer employed by vke; and rolf dieter heese, a concor employee, be prosecuted criminally.

kloppenborg found that the bridge, which collapsed on july 6 1998, did not satisfy minimum industry standards, specifically in design and reinforcement. there was no evidence of independent design review as required in terms of the contract, and
the design of the temporary works was entrusted to heese, who was not a registered professional engineer.

the inquiry also found that the matter of the slide path of the precast sections of the bridge was not discussed in meetings between vke and concor. some sections of the bridge lacked the required steel reinforcements by 34 percent and in other sections up to 74 percent.

richard spoor, an occupational health specialist attorney who acts for some of the injured workers and the families of the deceased, said yesterday that while summons for damages had been issued, proceedings were stayed pending the outcome of the inquiry.

"we will approach the parties in the light of the report and ask that if they will not do the proper thing and settle the claims. it is a very modest sum for people who have suffered grievously."

spoor expected the parties to act in a socially responsible manner and to pay compensation for the deaths.

the injured people were not offered any counselling or treatment, and instead were dismissed. it was a shameful thing do, he said.

arthur taute, vke's chief executive, said the company's insurers were looking at settling the damages claims.

after the incident vke had commissioned a multimillion-rand investigation by a number of experts into the cause of the bridge's failure, which found that a simplistic theory on the cause did not withstand analysis, he said.

in august 2000 concor and vke agreed to forego their rights of crossexamination of expert witnesses and of argument in order to shorten the inquiry.

regarding the commission's findings, vke believed that when the contractual obligation of the parties, vke's expert testimony and the evidence of factual witnesses was tested by informed crossexamination, responsibility would be placed in the proper quarter, taute said.

the department of water affairs could not be reached for comment.