Gujarat is Modi’s home state and he was already visiting him at the time of the accident. He said Monday he was “deeply saddened by the tragedy” and his workplace announced reimbursement for the families of the dead.
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Angry and grieving families mourned the dead as attention focused on why the pedestrian bridge, built by British colonialism in the past 1800s and billed through the state’s tourism website as an “artistic and technological marvel,” collapsed Sunday night, and who might be responsible. The bridge had reopened 4 days earlier.
Police Inspector General Ashok Yadav told The Associated Press that according to an official count, no one was missing, but rescuers and divers continued searching Tuesday.
“We must be on the side of caution,” Yadav said.
The officer said at least 196 other people were rescued and that the 10 injured were in good condition.
At the site of the twist of fate, at least a dozen divers searched the dark water.
“Silt, weeds and dust are hampering our efforts to help people in need,” said Ankit Yadav, a diver.
Gaffar Shah, the custodian of Morbi’s Muslim cemetery, said he helped bury 25 bodies after the disaster.
“I had never realized this in my life,” Shah said as he sat on the sidewalk of the cemetery. “Entire families have been wiped out. “
Some families stood in front of newly dug graves in marigold flowers as they prayed.
Just over a mile (about two kilometers) from the cemetery, at a Hindu crematorium where more than a dozen bodies were taken for their final rites, the atmosphere was dark. A guard said they were “overwhelmed by the corpses. “He said it was painful. cremate children.
On Monday, police arrested nine people, in addition to the bridge’s operator, the Areva Group, while they opened an investigation into the incident.
The Gujarat government opened a case against Oreva for alleged culpable homicide, attempted murder and rape.
In March, the Morbi city government awarded a 15-year contract to manage the bridge to Oreva, an organization of corporations known primarily for making watches, mosquito killers and electric bicycles. That same month, Oreva closed the bridge, which spans a giant segment of the Machchu River, for seven months for repairs.
The bridge has been repaired several times in the afterlife and many of its original parts have been replaced over the years.
It reopened on October 26, the first day of the Gujarati New Year, which coincides with the Hindu festival season. The charm attracted many tourists.
Sandeepsinh Zala, a Morbi official, told the Indian Express newspaper that the company had reopened the bridge without first obtaining a “certificate of proficiency. “This can be independently verified, but officials said they were investigating.
Officials said the design collapsed under the weight of many other people. Crisis protection video showed him shaking violently and others trying to hold on to their steel cables and fences before the aluminum walkway gave way and crashed into the river.
The bridge cracked in the middle with its walkway and cables damaged.
It is not known how many other people were on the bridge when it collapsed. Survivors said it was so dense that other people were temporarily unable to escape when the wires began to break.
Modi Gujarat’s top elected official for 12 years before becoming India’s prime minister in 2014. Elections for the Gujarat state government are scheduled for the next few months and opposition parties have demanded a thorough investigation into the crash.
The bridge cave in the third primary crisis in Asia involving giant crowds in a month.
On Saturday, a wave of Halloween crowds killed more than 150 people attending the festivities in Itaewon, a community in Seoul, South Korea. On October 1, Indonesian police fired tear gas at a soccer match, leading to an accident that killed another 132 people as spectators. He tried to flee.
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India’s infrastructure has long been plagued by security concerns, and Morbi has suffered other major disasters. In 1979, a dam ruptured upstream on the Machchu River, sending walls of water into the city and killing many other people on one of India’s largest dam faults. .
In 2001, thousands of others died in an earthquake in Gujarat. Morbi, 150 kilometers (90 miles) from the quake’s epicenter in Bhuj, suffered extensive damage. According to a report by the Times of India newspaper, the bridge that collapsed on Sunday was also seriously damaged.