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Materials, Planning Eyed in Bridge Collapse
Farouk Arnaz & Agus Triyono | November 29, 2011

An engineer examines the wreckage of the Kutai Kartanegara bridge in Tenggarong, East Kalimantan on Tuesday.  (AP Photo) An engineer examines the wreckage of the Kutai Kartanegara bridge in Tenggarong, East Kalimantan on Tuesday. (AP Photo)
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RuleBritannia
6:04pm Dec 1, 2011

Syaukani Hasan Rais, was sentenced to six years in prison in 2007 for embezzling Rp 93.2 billion from district coffers...Do they ever get any of this money back from these people?????????


RuleBritannia
6:03pm Dec 1, 2011

Materials "eyed"? Yes, bridges built to spec with the right materials regularly collapse around the world


cemf
8:28am Nov 30, 2011

For many years there was a toll on either side of that bridge then it stopped.

I'm led to believe the reason was that the bridge was the responsibility of central government.

In which case, I wonder what happened to all the toll fees.


Wonderland
8:14am Nov 30, 2011

This all about the maths:

Indonesian+corruption+incompetence = collapsed bridge


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With the official death toll from the collapse of East Kalimantan’s Mahakam II Bridge now at 18, police are scrutinizing the materials used in its construction to see if corners were cut.

Addressing concerns raised on Monday by authorities that graft played a part in the collapse, Sr. Comr. Boy Rafli Amar, the National Police spokesman, said no indications had been found yet.

“We still have to look more closely at how the construction project was planned and carried out,” he said. “If there are indications of criminal negligence, we will investigate who the perpetrators were.”

Boy added that in addition to vetting the construction process for negligence, police would also look for possible violations of the 1999 Construction Services Law.

“We’ll run laboratory tests on components from the bridge to see whether they met the project specifications,” he said.

The bridge, which spanned the Mahakam River in Kutai Kartanegara district in East Kalimantan, collapsed on Saturday, sending dozens of people plunging into the water below. By Tuesday, rescuers had recovered 18 bodies, although several other people were still missing.

The 720-meter-long suspension bridge was built in 2001 at a cost of Rp 150 billion ($16.4 million). The district head at the time, Syaukani Hasan Rais, was sentenced to six years in prison in 2007 for embezzling Rp 93.2 billion from district coffers. He has since been granted a presidential pardon because he suffered a series of strokes.

Boy said police were questioning several people involved in the bridge’s construction, as well as engineering experts, to evaluate whether any money had been embezzled. “The investigative audit centers on the quality of the construction,” he said.

Among those being questioned are 11 workers from construction services firm Bukaka, which was in charge of maintenance work on the bridge. The company is owned by former vice president Jusuf Kalla.

Comr. Gen. Sutarman, the National Police’s chief of detectives, said another six workers would also be questioned.

He added that the police’s main focus for now was recovering the victims’ bodies, but he said that was difficult considering the near-zero visibility in the water and the number of vehicles littering the riverbed.

“Only when all of that is clear can we proceed fully with the investigation into why the bridge collapsed,” Sutarman said.

The incident has sparked calls for other bridges across the country to be inspected.

In Landak district, West Kalimantan, officials warned that the Ngabang Bridge there was at high risk of collapse. Adrianus Asia Sidot, the district head, said that although the 60-year-old structure was out of commission, it was often used by trucks.

In Pontianak, the West Kalimantan capital, officials have called for an evaluation of the 31-year-old Kapuas I Bridge. The local public works office said the evaluation was necessary as the bridge had passed the halfway point of its predicted lifetime of 50 years. Local authorities have limited the amount of traffic allowed onto it.

Additional reporting by Antara