Electronic Resumé of Peter Prevos

River Training Works, Jamuna (Bangladesh)

The Jamuna rises in the Himalayas and passes through Tibet, China (known there as Tsang Po) and India (as Brahmaputra) before entering Bangladesh and finally discharging in the Bay of Bengal. At the bridge site, for example, the width of the river varies from 5 km in the dry season to about 12 km during the flood season.

The scope of this project was to construct river training works, which were designed to ensure the structural integrity of the Jamuna Multipurpose Bridge.

The river works included the construction of a two kilometre 'hardpoint', a temporary boat harbour and two so called guidebunds to force the river to flow under the river.

The most fascinating aspect of working on this contract was the huge amount of labourers used to undertake the works. At some stage we employed about five thousand people to undertake excavation works. To prevent erosion of the river banks, about 1.5 million tonnes of rock was used, most of which was quarried by hand in India and transported in trains, trucks and small boats. Most of this rock was also placed using manual labour.