#Chenab Bridge – Symbol of resilience & modern engineering!
An engineering marvel, a testament of India's rise!
#Chenab Bridge- symbol of resilience and modern engineering.
The Chenab Bridge stands at 359m, taller than the Eiffel Tower, connecting Kashmir with the rest of India by rail. It’s a symbol of resilience and modern engineering. Prof. Gali Madhavi Latha is the geotechnical expert who helped build the world’s tallest railway bridge, the Chenab Rail Bridge in Kashmir. She spent 17 year along with her team to make Chenab railway bridge a reality and a testament of India’s rise.
By Dr. Namrata Mishra Tiwari.
Courtsey : An ‘X ‘handler The Hindu tweets!
#ChenabRailBridge is situated at a height of 359 metres above the river and 35 metres higher than the Eiffel Tower in Paris. It is a 1,315-metre-long steel arch bridge engineered to withstand seismic and wind conditions. The bridge forms a crucial link in the 111-km stretch from… pic.twitter.com/febnbCzBwL
— The Hindu (@the_hindu) June 6, 2025
#Chenab Bridge- Symbol of resilience and modern engineering.
An engineering marvel.
The Chenab Railway Bridge is a steel-and-concrete structure extending 1,315 m across the river gorge. It consists of a 530-metre-long approach bridge and a 785-metre-long deck arch bridge (the part on which vehicles ply). The steel structure can endure extreme weather conditions, including temperatures as low as -20 degrees Celsius. It can also withstand wind speed of 220 km/hr, which is equivalent to winds associated with a super cyclone.
The region falls under seismic zone IV and the proposed bridge had to have the ability to withstand earthquakes of magnitude up to 8 on the Richter scale. Young mountains with rocky and steep slopes, fractures and joints meant that the civil engineers had to first prepare the ground so that the strong foundation could be laid.
The Chenab Bridge needed to withstand wind speeds of 260 km/h and earthquakes over magnitude 8. Her geotechnical designs made this feat structurally sound and safe.
Courtsey : An ‘X’ handler AwasthAwanishK tweets !
The #Udhampur – #SriNagar Rail Link project is a remarkable architectural and engineering marvel.
The #ChenabBridge – the world’s highest railway arch bridge.
🟢 Length: 1.3 Km
🟢 Height: 359 m (35 m higher than the Eiffel Tower)#ChenabRailBridge #JammuKashmir… pic.twitter.com/ZD4qjX7nIu— Awanish K Awasthi (@AwasthiAwanishK) June 7, 2025
Meet Professor Gali Madhavi Latha-professor civil engineering @IISC Bengaluru
Professor Madhavi Latha worked on the project for 17 years . From the year 2005, shortly after joining IISc, to 2022.She also served as Editor-in-Chief of the Indian Geotechnical Journal (2016–2022) and currently mentors young engineers at IISc. Her mission goes beyond structures , it’s about legacy. In 2021, she was named Best Woman Geotechnical Researcher by the Indian Geotechnical Society. The bridge was her magnum opus , but not her only achievement.
Back in 2005, Northern Railway brought Prof. Latha on board as the lead geotechnical consultant. Her task? Tame the Himalayas, stabilize steep fractured slopes, and make the impossible buildable. Armed with a PhD in Geotechnical Engineering from IIT Madras and research credentials at IISc Bangalore, she was no stranger to rock mechanics. The Chenab site would test everything she knew and more.
“Precision non-negotiable” says Madhavi Latha !
Professor Madhavi Latha hiked treacherous terrain, crossed rivers by boat, and studied fractured Himalayan rock at a site known for seismic activity. Danger wasn’t an obstacle , it was part of the brief. Her core strategy? Design-as-you-go.
Stitching together loose rock fragments, fixing slopes into the deep Chenab valley and stabilizing the ground in a highly active seismic zone to lay the bridge’s foundation was the task at her hand. She was primarily responsible for designing protection for the bridge’s foundation. When hidden voids and fractured rock emerged, she led cement grouting and rock anchoring operations, injecting, stitching, and reinforcing the slopes with over 66 km of rock anchors.
Some nights, Prof. Madhavi Latha stayed on-site around the clock, giving real-time advice as excavation crews tackled unstable rock. One slip could mean disaster.
Professor Madhavi Latha adapted designs in real-time, inventing methods on-site.
“The region is geotechnically and geologically challenging and close to the boundary where the Himalayas started forming,” Latha said. As the joints were found dipping towards the valley, the possibility of potential rock slides and slope slides were high, so her design was to fix these from sliding.
“Any slope is standing against gravity and it will always be vulnerable to slide off. This is the major instability in such terrains. Mountain formation is an outcome of tectonic activities and since these mountains are still young and continuously evolving, there are inherent discontinuities, joints, separations,” she said, describing the site where the bridge now stands.
“While designing, we had to consider the many joints present within the slopes which posed a threat of making the ground unstable, in particular if there was seismic activity. In order to make the bridge quake-resistant, we had to first stabilise these slopes where I was intensely involved,” Madhavi Latha said.
“To stabilise the slope we used cement grouts, so that loose rock fragments, if any, could be bonded together. In addition, we used steel rock anchors to stitch all these joints and connect these fragments,” she explained.
On Friday June 6, 2025, Chenab railway bridge was inaugurated by the Prime Minister Shree Narendra Modi.
Courtsey : An ‘X’ handler MeghaSPrasad tweets!
I see this as a loud msg to Pakistan, and an even louder one to China #ChenabRailBridge pic.twitter.com/492pD29k8F
— Megha Prasad (@MeghaSPrasad) June 7, 2025
‘The Vande Bharat Express test run !’- Salute the hero Prof. Madhavi !
After 17 years of hands-on work, she finally visited the finished bridge in 2022, not as a consultant, but as a proud mother showing her kids what perseverance can build.
On June 4, 2025, the Chenab Bridge saw its first Vande Bharat Express test run , a dream realized for engineers, railways, and the nation. The Chenab Bridge is now a global symbol of Indian engineering. But its foundation rests on a quiet, relentless geotechnical genius — Prof. Gali Madhavi Latha. Salute to the woman who moved mountains.
Courtsey : An ‘X’ handler Naresh Nambisan Tweets!
If you truly want to grasp the sheer magnitude of what India has achieved with the #ChenabBridge, you must watch this video.
It is nothing short of an engineering marvel that will leave you in awe. If kids are around, show them too. https://t.co/lFygqvX2eD— Naresh Nambisan | നരേഷ് (@nareshbahrain) June 8, 2025
#allpartydelegation “united” to serve nation first!!
