The Gehäviour of bridges during sëvere carthquakes in India, Japan and other countries has olearly shown that no damage to bridges occur- ‘red in MM VII or maller intensity areas and that the extent of damage Increased with the inereasing intensity (1). The most’severe damagé like fafling of girders is seen to have oceurred in MM intensity IX plus. Thus all bridge superstructues in seismie zone Vof zoning map of India (2) and those of important bridges lying in zone IV would need special care to avoid this type of severe damage or collapse. It is also observed that the bearings at the ends of spans or articulation sections at the ends of cantilevers play the critical role in this behaviour and most of the complete collapses could have been avoided if the necessary care had been taken in their design from the dynamic résponse view point. ‘The aim of this paper is to highlight the factors affecting the damage behaviour and thow by means of an illustrative example how a safe behaviour could be achieved even under the probable maximum earthquake ground motion.