The Valiathura pier, which has in recent years shown signs of instability, suffered further jolts on Wednesday with powerful waves taking away a portion of the support structure at the beginning of the pier. A building of the National Centre for Earth Science Studies, located near the pier, was also damaged, with a major portion of the wall facing the sea falling down.
A police team from the Valiathura station has been posted here to take action in case of emergencies. Access to the pier has been prevented with ropes and red flags.
“The sea was rough all through the morning. Waves had crossed the land barrier and reached till the Earth Science Studies centre. The old supporting structures of the pier have been unstable for quite sometime. This was waiting to happen,” said James, who resides nearby.
The dilapidated pier, which extends to 214 metres into the sea, was closed many times in the recent past due to safety concerns. Recently, the Ports department had completed the work on providing handrails across the full length of the bridge and also some concreting work on the top of the pier.
However, the long overdue strengthening work of the pier has not been taken up. The strengthening work is not easy to execute and so not many companies will come forward to take it up. The works include replacing of the beams that have fallen off and strengthening the weaker parts of the structure.
For this, methods like guniting are used, in which a mixture of cement and sand are sprayed on to the structure under high pressure.
The previous strengthening work was taken up more than a decade ago by a Tamil Nadu firm. Currently, there is administrative sanction of ₹2 crore for the strengthening works.
