644 WM. HERBERT HO BBS 



eleven piers standing, each v/ith 9000 cubic feet of masonry, there being three 

 spans of sixty feet and six spans of forty feet, but after the shock only two piers 

 on each bank v/ere left standing and the intermediate space is quite blank. At the 

 time of the shock the tvfo embankments are said by those v/ho were present to have 

 moved tov/ard one another and then apart, v/hen the telegraph v/ires v/ere snapped 

 across and some of the insulators v/ere hurled violently for a considerable distance 

 backvt^ard from the river. (P. 295.) 



The damage to the bridges on the Assam Bengal Railway is thus 

 summarized by Mr. Grimes: 



The abutment v/alls are cracked or broken and have come to, shortening the 

 span. . . . This coming-to of the abutment v/alls is often quite considerable, and 

 in spans of twenty feet it is sometimes as much as a foot. Accompanying this 

 movement v/e, in almost every case, see that on one or both sides of the bridge the 

 embankment has sunk several feet. When the bridges have wing walls to the 

 abutment, this forward movement has cracked and considerably damaged them, 

 but where, as in the case of many of the smaller bridges, there are straight return 

 walls, the pressure has acted along the length of the v/alls and not across them, 

 and so the bridges have mostly escaped v/ith little or no damage. The coming 

 to of the abutments and consequent shortening of the span has either resulted in 

 the buckling up of the girders in the center, or the girders have pushed back on 

 and broken off the balance v/alls of the abutments. In a fev/ cases the piers of the 

 bridges have been tilted over to the side, but in most cases only inv/ards. (P. 296.) 



Gauhati Road Bridge over Umkra River: 



The large bridge on the Gauhati Road about one and one-half miles from Shil- 

 long, over the Umkra River, has suffered severely. The abutment on the southeast 

 side fell entirely, carrying the girders v.^ith it. The tv/o piers and the abutment on 

 the northwest side, which are of more recent construction, remained standing, 

 though somewhat cracked. (P. 271.) 



Bridge near Shampur on Kuch Bihar Railv^ay: 



Near Shampur, also, the hexagonal brick piers of one of the bridges have been 

 broken through horizontally and the upper portion has shifted slightly: this form 

 of fracture appears to have been rather common, and though at first supposed to 

 be of no great moment, was subsequently found to render the bridges unsafe for 

 either rapid or heavy traffic. (P. 284.) 



Bamboo bridges over canal (reported by H. H. Hayden) : 



The canal being, as already stated, a line of v/eakness, it is not surprising to 

 find that the banks on each side are cut up by fissures, while its bed has risen in 

 some cases through several feet, the central portion being nov/ above the water: 

 this is well shown by the bamboo bridges v/hich have been shot up in the center 

 (see Fig. 4, A). The same effect is seen in numerous places betv/een Rangpur 

 and Kuch Bihar, where bridges of small span cross canals or swamps. If the 



