Praneeta Mahajan
Hamilton, 5 November 2022
Damaged bridge after collapse (Getty image)
Just before tragedy struck due to a bridge collapse in Gujarat, a security guard stood at either end of a 145-year-old footbridge in the Indian town of Morbi, blowing whistles and repeatedly asking surging crowds to get off the structure spanning the murky Machchhu river, witnesses said.
One of the six people who saw the bridge collapse gave an account of its final moments and said he and his colleagues also shouted from the shore to warn of the danger.
Police estimate the number of people on the bridge at around 200. Local officials said about 400 tickets had been sold, although not necessarily to be on the bridge at the same time.
A construction worker on the eastern river bank watching the crowd build said “We called out to people to tell them that they should leave because we could see a lot of crowding. And then the bridge collapsed in front of our eyes.”
He said women and children were among those who drowned, adding that he heard them wailing and screaming.
In the hours before the accident, several hundred people gathered on and around the 233-metre bridge that reopened last week after months of renovation work.
A single private security guard was present at each end of the bridge but they struggled to control the surge of sightseers as evening fell, four other witnesses and a survivor said. The witnesses did not know whether the security guards had survived.
“Please listen to us, don’t shake the bridge, don’t crowd, keep moving’ the guards were saying, but people were not listening,” said Pankaj Kumar, another construction worker who was on the riverside.
Kumar’s account was echoed by three other witnesses and a survivor who said he entered the bridge with his friends minutes before the collapse, via one of the ticket booths at the end of the bridge. He said, “We saw security guys blowing their whistles at people asking them to not crowd and keep moving.”
rescue operation underway (getty image)
CCTV footage showed a group of young men taking photos while others tried to rock the bridge from side to side in the moments before the cables snapped and they plunged from the narrow walkway.
Police have so far arrested nine people on charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Those arrested included ticketing clerks and three security guards who were on duty when the bridge collapsed, a senior police official said. “The incident happened due to lack of crowd regulation and management,” a government official leading the investigation said.
Municipal officials said Oreva, the company contracted with Bridge repair work had not informed local authorities about reopening the bridge.
The chaotic scenes continued at Morbi’s main government hospital. Hundreds of people gathered there, desperate to find out about their loved ones, and bodies lay on stretchers and beds inside wards, volunteer helper Bhaskar Wala said.
A staff member said there was little space to move around because of the crowding and it was hard to identify the living from the dead.
“People were sharing photographs of their family members with us. I helped identify eight members of the one family all of whom died.”
The news of the bridge collapse was received with great sadness and worry by the Gujarati community in Hamilton, many of whom are familiar with the place and recalled visiting it during their trips to India. Some fundraising efforts are also being organised in Hamilton during this time of crisis for the families affected by the tragedy.
Praneeta Mahajan is an Indian Newslink Reporter based in Hamilton.
