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Death toll from India bridge collapse rises to 132, search on for missing
The death toll from a suspension bridge collapse in Gujarat in India rose to 132, a local government official told Reuters on Monday (Oct 31).
“The death toll in the bridge collapse incident has gone up to 132. The search and rescue operations are continuing,” said the senior official, NK Muchhar, adding that the toll could rise further.
The Gujarat government has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to inquire into the bridge collapse.
Municipalities Commissioner Rajkumar Beniwal is going to head the probe panel. He said that The team’s first task is to find out the reason behind the collapse of the suspension bridge, and based on the findings SIT will also make suggestions to avoid such incidents in future.”
He said there are four technical experts which are part of the team, who are good at structural design and quality control, and will collect samples of the bridge as well as its quality will be checked, whether proper standard was maintained or not.
Beniwal added that the contractor engineer’s statement will be recorded and documents of various certificates will be recovered to know whether at every stage, quality approvals were taken and materials were sent for testing or not.
Even a bridge designer’s certificate will be sought whether it was approved by any government agency or not, he said.
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Authorities said more than 400 people were on and around the colonial-era suspension bridge at the time of the collapse. The bridge had drawn many sightseers celebrating the Diwali, or festival of lights, and Chhath Puja holidays.
The 230-meter bridge was built during British rule in the 19th century. It had been closed for renovation for six months and was reopened for the public recently.
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