A bridge maintained by Philippine National Railways (PNR) in Camarines Sur reportedly collapsed on early Saturday morning. According to eyewitnesses, the aging train bridge located in Barangay Apad, Ragay suddenly dropped causing a panic to nearby residents thinking that there are casualties from the accident.

The local settlers woke up early Saturday due to the noise they've heard coming from where the bridge is located. Locals in CamSur rushed to the destroyed PNR train bridge last week and jointly investigated the scene while waiting for the authorities to conduct proper inspection of the area.

From the photos published by the Kapuso network, the metal frames of the bridge are seen twisted in opposite angles and the supporting beams were totally wrecked. The damage of the PNR platform may possibly result to a huge impact on major businesses and could affect the movement of local products to other central commercial markets resulting to lost of income of our brothers who mainly depends on selling agricultural goods. There's no alternative livelihood that they can obtain while this bridge is not yet fixed.

In a report released by GMA news, the weak foundation of the bridge was already placed under close monitoring a few months back by the PNR provincial Engineering maintenance team as they started to notice the deteriorating condition of the infrastructure.

However, despite the inspection of the experts, no concrete action was made to rehabilitate and repair the bridge. Citing that the footing was no longer in good condition, they could have placed the train bridge under intensive restoration and reconstruction to provide constant service to the people in this location since this is a vital transportation in CamSur villages.

The bridge condition could have been weakened further due to some considerable number of flooding in the area. Many residents noticed the soil at the base of the bridge got eroded whenever the water in the river rises. 

For those who are not aware of the significant role of the PNR bridge, this infrastructure provides easier access to various towns in CamSur. Since it links these areas, people simply need to pass by the bridge without boat fare cost whenever they need to move to the other side of the river.

While waiting for the repair (if ever there will be a schedule this month), the Barangay officials proactively initiated a rotating shift of Barangay tanod to secure the place and prevent any type of untoward incidents.

Luckily no one was hurt, injured, nor killed when the PNR train bridge suddenly collapsed in Camarines Sur.

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