A farmer was washed away after he fell from a decade-old bridge that collapsed in Jharkhand’s Bokaro on Saturday following the swelling of the river due to incessant rains since Friday.

Bokaro district deputy commissioner Jadhav Vijaya Narayan Rao confirmed the collapse of the portion of the bridge and the washing away of the farmer.

“The bridge connecting Hosir West panchayat and Siyari panchayat in Gomia block of Bokaro collapsed on Saturday morning and a farmer who was crossing the bridge fell off into the river and has been washed away. We have employed local divers and a rescue team to retrieve the body,” said Jadhav Vijaya Narayan Rao.

She also said that a three-member probe team led by director DRDA (district rural development agency) and executive engineer of rural engineering organisation (REO) and executive engineer national rural employment programme (NREP) has been asked to investigate the reason for the collapse.

The deputy commissioner said that only after post-mortem of the body the district administration will be in a position to ascertain compensation as per disaster management norms for the deceased family.

According to local reports, two spans and a pillar of the bridge collapsed at around 5.30am on Saturday and a resident of Dhendhe village identified as Bhanwarilal Prajapati, 52, a farmer going to his farm on the other side of the bridge fell into the river with the span and got washed away.

Several villagers staged a protest against the collapse of the bridge along with family members of the victim farmer and blocked the Lalpania-Gomia main road for nearly five hours. The villagers claimed that the bridge was built nearly 12 years ago and connected villagers between Bokaro and Hazaribagh.

Several road diversions were washed away, trees uprooted and houses damaged due to incessant rain for the past two days in Jharkhand.

The Jharkhand government has already ordered that all schools be closed on Saturday because of the rains.

The weather department has issued an alert for heavy rains in many districts on Saturday.

In Ranchi, several low-lying areas were submerged under rainwater. Around 40 people had been rescued on Friday by the NDRF personnel from Bandhgari locality under the Sadar police station in Ranchi city.