MORBI, India — Nine people were arrested Monday in connection with the collapse of a
pedestrian bridge in western
India that killed at least 137 people, police
said.
اضافة اعلان
The nine — all
associated with a company that maintained the bridge in Morbi — were being
investigated for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, senior police
officer Ashok Kumar Yadav said in a statement.
The bridge, which had reopened days earlier after
months of renovation, collapsed on Sunday evening, sending hundreds tumbling
into the river in Prime Minister
Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat.
Authorities said
nearly 500 people were celebrating the last day of the Diwali festival on and
around the nearly 150-year-old suspension bridge when supporting cables
snapped.
CCTV footage showed
the structure swaying — with a few people apparently deliberately rocking it —
before it suddenly gave way.
The walkway and one
fence crashed into the Machchhu river, leaving the other side dangling in
mid-air as people fell into the water in the dark.
“I saw the bridge
collapse before my eyes,” said one witness who worked all night on rescue
efforts, without giving his name.
“It was traumatic
when a woman showed me a photo of her daughter and asked if I had rescued her.
I could not tell her that her daughter had died.”
Supran, another
witness, said the bridge, which was a popular tourist attraction, was
“jam-packed”.
“The cables snapped
and the bridge came down in a split second. People fell on each other and into
the river,” he told local media.
After the collapse,
people clung to the twisted remains of the bridge or tried to swim to safety in
the dark.
Local police chief
P. Dekavadiya said that by Monday afternoon the death toll had risen to 137.
They included around 50 children, the youngest being a two-year-old boy.
One local MP,
Kalyanji Kundariya, told media he had lost 12 family members in the accident,
including five children.
‘No certificate’
Authorities launched a
rescue operation immediately following the collapse, with boats and divers
searching the river all night and throughout Monday.
The bridge, 233m long and 1.5m wide, was inaugurated
in 1880 by British colonial authorities and made with materials shipped from
England, reports said.
The Gujarat tourist department describes the “grand
suspension bridge” about 200km west of the state’s main city, Ahmedabad, as an
“artistic and technological marvel”.
Sandeepsinh Jhala, Morbi municipality’s chief
officer, said the bridge had not been issued a safety certificate after the
recent repair work.
Reports named the firm that carried out the repairs
as a unit of the Gujarat-based Oreva group, which describes itself as the
world’s largest clock manufacturer, and also makes lighting products and
e-bikes. The company could not immediately be reached for comment.
Accidents from old and poorly maintained
infrastructure, including bridges, are common in India.
In 2016, the collapse of a flyover onto a busy
street in Kolkata killed at least 26 people.
Five years earlier, at least 32 people perished when
a packed bridge collapsed in the hill resort of Darjeeling.
Read more Region and World
Jordan News
.jpg)
.jpg)
