A 190-foot-long iron Bailey bridge on National Highway-5 near Urni Dhank collapsed into the Sutlej riverbed on Tuesday morning, cutting off the direct road link between Shimla and the tribal districts of Kinnaur and Lahaul-Spiti during the peak tourist season.
The incident occurred at 10.20am when a gravel-laden dumper truck crossing the bridge plunged into the riverbed below as the structure gave way, police said. The driver suffered minor injuries, police said.
The collapse triggered immediate gridlock on the highway, leaving queues of vehicles stranded on both sides. Traffic has since been diverted through an old, alternate alignment near the site, where officials are regulating vehicular movement to ease the bottleneck.
Kinnaur deputy commissioner Amit Kumar Sharma said the bridge had structural issues, which had previously been flagged to the national highways wing of the public works department (PWD). While minor repair work had been carried out in the past, the structure ultimately failed. Officials are currently assessing the extent of the damage, and the local administration has assured that the bridge will be restored at the earliest.