At least 141 people were killed on Sunday when a 143-year-old cable suspension bridge collapsed into a river in the town of Morbi in Gujarat, India.
According to authorities, the 19th-century colonial-era pedestrian bridge over the Machchhu river in the western Indian state’s Morbi district collapsed because it could not support the weight of the large crowd standing on it. The military is currently searching for survivors. So far, at least 177 survivors have been pulled from the river, with some hospitalized in critical condition, the BBC reports.
“There were just too many people on the bridge. We could barely move,” one survivor, 27-year-old Sidik Bai, said while recovering from injuries at a local hospital.
At the time, Sidik jumped into the water when the bridge started to crack. He also shared that his friend was crushed by the bridge’s metal carriageway and died.
“Everyone was crying for help, but one by one, they all began disappearing in the water,” Sidik added.
The bridge had reopened four days earlier for the Gujarati New Year after being closed for six months for renovation.
“Rarely in my life would I have experienced such pain,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was “deeply saddened by the tragedy,” said in a public event on Monday.
According to CBC, an election for the Gujarat state government is scheduled to occur in the coming months. Opposition parties have called for an investigation into the collapse, claiming that the bridge was reopened without a safety clearance. While the claim could not be independently verified, the state government announced the creation of a special team to investigate the tragedy.
India has a long history of infrastructure concerns that have often resulted in significant disasters on its highways and bridges.
India isn’t the only country to have recently experienced a mass casualty incident. Over the weekend, at least 153 people were killed following a stampede at a Halloween festival in Seoul, South Korea.
During a soccer match on October 1, police in Indonesia fired tear gas to quell a riot among soccer fans, which resulted in a stampede that killed 135 people.
Related:
At Least 125 Killed in Riot, Stampede at Soccer Game in Indonesia
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Milton Quintanilla is a freelance writer. He is also the co-hosts of the For Your Soul podcast, which seeks to equip the church with biblical truth and sound doctrine. Visit his blog Blessed Are The Forgiven.
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