In a shocking incident coming in from Gujarat Ten persons, including two siblings, were killed and nine others rescued, some of them with injuries, after multiple vehicles plunged into the Mahisagar river when a portion of a four-decade-old bridge collapsed in Vadodara district. The death toll however rose as the day progressed accrding to report by PTI.
The death toll in the Mahisagar river bridge collapse in Gujarat’s Vadodara district rose to 20 after an injured man died in hospital and the body of a missing person was found in the river, officials said.
One more person was still missing, and efforts to find him will be resumed on Saturday as the search and rescue operation concluded in the evening, they said.
Citing a preliminary probe report, a state minister said the collapse was caused by the “crushing of pedestal and articulation joints”.
A slab of the Gambhira bridge, which connects central Gujarat to the Saurashtra region and is located near Padra town, caved in, killing ten persons, Superintendent of Police (Vadodara rural) Rohan Anand said.
Visuals from the site showed that the entire chunk of the slab of the bridge between two piers has collapsed. The slab collapse caused the vehicles, which were passing through the bridge, to plunge into the river.
Five out of nine persons who were rescued were getting treated at state-run SSG Hospital in Vadodara city, Anand said, adding none of them is in a critical condition.
The SP said the 10 to 15 metres long slab of the bridge came crashing down at around 7.30 am.
Reacting to the collapse , Congress demanded the resignation of Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel and Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi over repeated failures and alleged that there have been 16 such incidents in the State in the past four years.
The Gambhira bridge collapse in Mujpur village of Vadodara district’s Padra taluka, occurred due to “crushing of the pedestal and articulation,” according to the preliminary report of the high-level inquiry committee constituted by Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.
