Bailey bridge on Banab River to be completed by Friday

By DOROTHY MARK
THE Bailey bridge being built across the Banab River in Madang is expected to be completed by Friday.
“It is now less than 30 metres from the bank on the other side,” John Bankok, the JV PNG Investment Construction Company director, said yesterday.
He said there were four Bailey frames on either side to support more than 80 tonnes in weight. They have been rollers on each side of the bridge. An excavator is being used to push the bridge cross to the other bank.
“It’s the kind of job that we must do carefully, slowly and accurately so that we don’t go wrong,” he said.
The bridge is one of the biggest infrastructure problems Madang faced last year which contributed to a lot of social problems to people travelling along the North Coast road since it collapsed on Jan 4 last year.
He expects the first vehicle to drive across by Jan 26. It took him nearly two months to work on the bridge. The first stage was the uprooting of the old pillars built in 1962.
The past three weeks were spent on building a new foundation and pushing the baileys across the river.
Bogia PMV owner Bobby Giam thanked JV PNG Investment for working quickly on the bridge.