India’s prime minister is due to visit the site of a collapsed 143-year-old suspension bridge in western India. The recently repaired bridge collapsed and sent hundreds into the river, killing at least 134 people. It is one of the worst accidents in India in recent years.
Narendra Modi is expected to arrive in the town of Morbi in Gujarat state on Tuesday afternoon. Gujarat is Modi’s hometown and he was visiting there when the accident happened. He said he was “deeply saddened by this tragedy” and his cabinet announced compensation for the families of the victims.
Angry and grieving families mourn the victims. Meanwhile, attention has turned to why the bridge, built during British colonial times in the late 1800s and touted by Gujarat tourist sites as an “artistic and technological marvel”, s collapsed on Sunday night, and who could be responsible. The bridge had just reopened four days earlier.
Inspector General Ashok Yadav told The Associated Press that no one has been declared missing “to date” based on official counts. But rescue workers and divers were still deployed in the search operation on Tuesday morning. He said at least 196 people had been rescued and the 10 injured were in stable condition.
At the crash site, at least six divers were working in murky water. They said at least two people were still believed to be missing. Mud and grass hampered efforts to find the missing person, said Ankit Yadav, one of the divers.
On Monday, police arrested nine people, including bridge operations managers Oreva Group, as they began to investigate the incident. [uh/ab]
