At least 132 people died in India in the collapse Sunday night of a colonial-era pedestrian bridge that spanned a river in Gujarat state, local police said on Monday.
Authorities estimated that 500 people, including women and children, were celebrating a religious holiday on and around the bridge when the cables supporting it gave way shortly after dark.
The death toll from the crash so far is at least 132, Rajkot District Inspector General Ashok Kumar Yadav said Monday morning.
“So far 132 people have died in the bridge collapse. We have not yet received the list of deceased persons,” Yadav told AFP.
According to district administration sources, most of the deceased are women and children.
The state government has appointed a team of five investigators to determine the causes of the bridge collapse, Yadav added.
“Under my eyes”
A complaint against X for manslaughter has been filed. At least 15 people are hospitalized.
Morbi police chief P. Dekavadiya told AFP that more than 130 people had been rescued.
The bridge over the Machchhu River, located in Morbi, about 200 kilometers west of Ahmedabad, Gujarat’s main city, dates back to British colonial times and had just reopened to the public after months of work.
“The bridge collapsed before my eyes,” said a witness, without giving his name, after helping all night to rescue the victims of the accident.
“A woman showed me a picture of her daughter and asked me if I had rescued her, it was heartbreaking,” he told local media, “I couldn’t tell her that her daughter was dead.
“The bridge was full of people”, underlined Mr. Supran, another resident, “the cables dropped, the bridge collapsed in a fraction of a second. People, first falling on top of each other, fell into the river.”
“We helped people who were able to swim to shore,” said another witness, Ranjanbhai Patel, “but we couldn’t save most of those who fell into the river.”
The bridge had just reopened
The 233-meter-long suspension bridge was built in 1880 with materials imported from England, according to local media.
According to the NDTV channel, it had been reopened to the public on Wednesday, after seven months of work, without a security certificate having been issued by the authorities.
A rescue operation was launched, involving divers, boats and dozens of soldiers.
Authorities planned to cut off the river’s water supply from the nearby check dam and use pumps to dry up the stream to speed up search operations.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was in Gujarat, where he is from, called for “the urgent mobilization of rescue teams”, and the provision of aid for all victims, his cabinet said on Twitter.
Accidents involving old and poorly maintained infrastructure are common in India, especially bridges.
In 2016, a footbridge broke over a busy street in the city of Kolkata, killing at least 26 people.
In 2011, at least 32 people died when a bridge collapsed over which a crowd was celebrating a festival in northeast India, about 30 kilometers from the city of Darjeeling.
Less than a week later, around 30 people were killed when a footbridge broke across a river in Aruchnal Pradesh state.
In 2006, at least 34 people were killed when a 150-year-old bridge collapsed on a passenger train at a station in Bihar state.