The Howrah Bridge is a cantilever bridge that spans the Hooghly River in West Bengal. In the Indian city of Kolkata lies a bridge that is in danger. Although not from Vandals, weather or natural erosion, or even age.

Over the years, residents have been purchasing and chewing a mix of betel leaf, areca nut, and slaked lime, then spitting the mixture at the base of the bridge.

The hangars, which were once 6 millimeters thick, are now a mere 3 mm, prompting authorities to come up with new ways to prevent any future damage.

The weakened steel hangars of the bridge, pretty darned corrosive. But given the corrosive spit, as well as past vehicular accidents and corrosive bid droppings, this incredibly busy bridge is in dire need of a makeover before anyone gets seriously injured.

It is a heritage structure and a symbol of the former second capital of the British Empire, but Calcutta’s Howrah Bridge has become a giant spittoon.  Pedestrians have spat half-chewed betel leaf, areca nut and slaked lime on its steel hangers, corroding the base of the mighty bridge.

To save the bridge, port engineers have come up with the idea of covering the steel hangers with fibreglass.

The bridge was built in 1937 and does not have a single screw. Commissioned in 1943, the bridge was originally named the New Howrah Bridge, because it links the city of Howrah to its twin city, Kolkata (Calcutta). On 14 June 1965 it was renamed Rabindra Setu, after Rabindranath Tagore a great Bengal poet and the first Indian Nobel laureate. However it is still popularly known as the Howrah Bridge

It has 78 hangers bearing its 26,500 tonnes of steel, as well as the 500,000 pedestrians and half a million vehicles that use it every day.

Apart from bearing the stormy weather of the Bay of Bengal region, it successfully bears the weight of a daily traffic of approximately 100,000 vehicles and possibly more than 150,000 pedestrians, easily making it the busiest cantilever bridge in the world. The third longest cantilever bridge at the time of its construction, it is currently the sixth longest bridge of its type in the world.

Officials say corrosion is eating the hangers away, endangering the structure itself.

Thousands of people spit guthka – a chewable mixture of tobacco and slaked lime which often causes oral cancer – on the steel hangers. They also spit paan – betel leaf stuffed with areca nut, slaked lime and other ingredients.

The spitting has become such a menace that “the hanger bases have reduced to 50% of their original size in just three years”, said ML Meena, chairman of Kolkata Port Trust, which built and maintains the bridge.