Videos from the scene showed a crowd taking smartphone photos of the crowded bridge on Sunday evening when it began swaying violently before collapsing. Some officials estimated that as many as 400 people were packed onto the bridge – far more than the safe limit – when the overhead cables buckled and the 760-foot extension broke.
Farooq Adam Sandy, who lives in Morbi and lost 18-year-old cousin Riaz Rahman Bhatti in the accident, arrived at the scene 10 minutes after the bridge collapsed. Some visitors were still clinging to the collapsed bridge barely above the waterline, screaming for rescue. Others crawled along its railing back to the shore. More was lost in the water.
“It was a mess,” Sandy said.
After hearing that his cousin died in a dive but his friend Iqbal survived, Sandy is rushed to the hospital. There, he said, corpses were laid out in almost every corner of the empty space, while hundreds of relatives like him were moving from room to room, searching for the bodies of their loved ones. Sandy said that in the 10-foot-by-10-foot room used for autopsies, the doctors were “exhausted.”
As rescue operations continued on Monday, with the Indian army deploying divers to search for bodies, scrutiny turned to the company tasked with renovating and operating the bridge. The contractor, Oreva, is a large manufacturer known for producing watches and Electric bikes, on Friday wrapped up a six-month renovation of the bridge, just in time for the Gujarati New Year. City official Sandipsinh Zala told the Indian Express that it had reopened to tourists without first obtaining a permit from the government.
Zala also criticized the bridge operators for selling as many tickets as possible without controlling the flow of people.
After a day of investigation, local police have arrested nine people, including two Oriva executives, two contractors, three security guards and two box office employees, a Morby police official said late Monday. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
In its initial legal complaint, local police did not mention Oreva or any other company, but said they would file murder charges with “the agency responsible for maintaining the bridge” and “the management agency.” The charge of premeditated murder does not amount to murder and is similar to manslaughter in the American legal system.
A spokesperson for Oriva said it appeared that “the bridge collapsed because a lot of people in the central section of the bridge were trying to change it from one direction to another,” according to the Indian Express.
It is unclear why the company that specializes in making wall clocks, electric bicycles and ceramic products was contracted to operate the bridge. The company could not be reached for comment on Monday, and local media reported that its offices were deserted.
In India, a series of public safety incidents have been blamed on shoddy construction. In 2019, a pedestrian bridge collapsed near the historic Chhatrapati Shivaji railway building in Mumbai, killing 6 people In 2011, more than 30 festival-goers died when a bridge collapsed near the Himalayan hill town of Darjeeling.
The bridge, which was highlighted on the official Gujarat tourism website, is almost a century old and is still popular with tourists. It was built by a Gujarati prince who was fascinated with construction. Waghji Thakor built railways, ports, temples and a bridge, which was to be a technological interface connecting two of his palaces.
On Sunday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it is ‘Deeply sad’ From the tragedy he sought Urgent packing From rescue teams to the disaster area, which was teeming with women and children shortly before the tragedy. He was due to visit the site on Tuesday.
Mahesh Langa from Ahmedabad, Shams Irfan from Srinagar, Anant Gupta in New Delhi, and Jennifer Hassan in London contributed to this report.
“Alcohol geek. Certified web scholar. Travel aficionado. Subtly charming twitter fanatic.”