The Bank Failures of the River Rupnarayan in East Midnapore District, West Bengal—A Case Study
摘要
Recently, the right bank of the Rupnarayan, a tidal river of West Bengal collapsed at Mirpur during and after the cyclone “YAAS” (May, 2021). At another stretch at Denan, Kolaghat, bank collapse occurred during the falling stage of tide in a winter day of 2022. This paper deals with the result of the investigations at the sites, laboratory tests, and the slip circle analysis of the bank slopes. Various types of cracks on the embankment road at Mirpur were generated during and after the cyclone. The condition of the embankment road worsened as the rain water seeped through the cracks and traffic was practically suspended requiring major restoration work. Another embankment road at Denan, Kolaghat, subsided during low tide. A stretch of 110 m subsided by 2–3 m. It was a deep, major subsidence. Field investigations were done separately at the two sites. Some holes were bored (three numbers of bore-hole at each site) within the affected zones and adjacent areas. Standard penetration test (SPT) at field and laboratory tests on the collected soil samples were done subsequently. A suitable software (SLIDE 2D) has been used in the stability analysis considering drawdown effect. The results of the analysis of Mirpur bank slope show that the factors of safety values are all above 1.5. Actually the failure was local, near top. The results of the analysis of Denan bank slope show that at the affected stretch the safety factor was marginal, near to one before subsidence. The authors intend to suggest for providing wooden piles on slope of the embankment roads along the river bank where the bank slopes are high and there are traffic loads. The restoration work may be done in stages. Initially lower portion should be restored before finishing the embankment road.