PAMBAN BRIDGE - India's Most Dangerous Sea Bridge

The holy pilgrim town of Rameswaram situated on the Pamban Islands is been connected to the mainland of India with the help of a railway bridge which is known as the popular Pambanbridge.

It was India’s first bridge to have been built over a sea, the first ever India’s sea bridge. It is the Pamban bridge of Rameswaram. This bridge got opened on February 1914.

Here’s a thrill ride over India’s most dangerous sea bridge, the Pamban bridge, Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu:

The rail bridge is a conventional bridge that rests on concrete piers and has a double leaf bascule section in its midway that open up to allow ships and barges to pass through the sea and cross the bridge easily. The midway section of this uniquely designed bridge can be raised as per the requirements. This is a unique feature of this bridge which makes it very popular and special. The two leaves of this Pamban bridge gets opened manually by using levers.

Key Specialties of Pamban bridge:

• Bridge can be raised from midway
• First bridge built over the sea
• Connects Pamban island and Rameswaram with Mainland India
• A key tourist attraction in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu
• India first and the longest sea bridge

Nearby Attractions:

• Dhanushkodi
• Ram Setu
• Narthamalai
• Sri Meenakshi Sundareswarar temple
• Thirumalai Nayak Palace
• Padukottai

Initially there was only a rail bridge that was built to connect the two untapped places, but later in 1988, a Pamban road bridge was also constructed parallel to the Pamban rail bridge. This road bridge was also known as India Gandhi Road bridge that connected the National Highway NH 49 with the city of Rameswaram. The bridge was inaugurated by our former Prime Minister of India, Rajiv Gandhi in October 1988.

Pamban is one of the fishermen towns of Rameswaram, popular as the Pamban Island. As per the sources of Wikipedia, construction of this 2.345 km long sea bridge too almost 14 years to be completely built. It was a tough project to work upon because building a bridge over some surface or over forest or lake is possible, but building a ridge over deep oceans and sea is a unique challenging project that needed time, knowledge and patience. Salute to the Engineers and workers involved in this who gifted us this great work with their sincere efforts.

Location: Between Mainland India and Rameswaram Island

Maintenance of this bridge is also a challenging task and responsibility. Being built over the sea, this bridge’s maintenance is a challenging job. Apart from that, the location of this bridge is another big challenge because this location is a high cyclone prone zone with high wind velocity.

1964 Rameswaram Cyclone: The major 1964 Rameswaram Cyclone affected and wiped off the entire town. It was a deadly moment and a great loss to the nation. It took multitude of lives. The Pamban rail bridge got damaged in that 1964 super cyclone of Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu. Later on, it was repaired, but it took a really very long time to repair it back to its normal. The town was declared as a ghost town when Dhanushkodi got completely washed off in 1964 cyclone. This railway bridge connects Mandapam on Mainland India with the Pamban Island and Rameswaram.