At least 68 dead in bridge collapse in western India

At least 68 people were killed when a pedestrian bridge over a river in the western Indian state of Gujarat collapsed on Sunday, plunging hundreds of people into the water, officials said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is in his home state Gujarat for a three-day visit, said he had directed the state chief minister to mobilize teams urgently for the rescue operation.

Fifty navy and 30 air force officials were sent to the scene along with a national disaster management team to trace missing people, the government said in a statement. A five-member special team was appointed to conduct an investigation into the disaster.

#GlobalNews

[hobbes]

Once again people in India overloading something then being shocked when something goes wrong.

[MsKimslays]

🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽🙏🏽 Praying for the families of the loved ones that were lost

[Element]

OMG 😭😭 what is happening first 140 died in Indonesia this month, and today 160 in south korea, and 60 in india 🙏 mercy god

[Megatron-slus]

The bridge had been closed for two years before the incident and was reopened after renovation on 26 October on the occasion of Gujarati New Year. The chief officer of the municipality, who had given the contract for repairs after the 2001 earthquake, said the private firm responsible for the renovations "threw the bridge open to visitors without notifying us and therefore, we couldn't get a safety audit of the bridge conducted. A spokesperson for the operators Oreva Group told The Indian Express newspaper that it appeared too many people were in the middle section of the bridge "trying to sway it".

[SEPK]

well if hundreds of people decent on the a weak bridge and jump up on down then this just shows the lack of education of people in the world.

[joecurry]

How old is this bridge and was it not like you know maintained

[sourabhkumar]

Only 80 people are allowed to at a time but 500+ people are present on this bridge when this incident happened.

[bcuzican]

Did this happen in Brampton? It looks like it

[Inlinetodie]

These same people come to Canada and do the same stuff causing injuries to Canadians

[tonguepetals]

Oh my god!!! What the hell people?!?!?

[shawnhawkins]

there is almost 2 billion of them no problem

[jamil]

RIP all deceased and may god bring peace to the family.

[oscarnavarro]

Desde México enviamos nuestras plegarias

[Fuzzy-_-Logic]

You guys need to outsource your bridge building to outside countries. My condolences to the lost and their loved ones.

[caw]

Prayers 🙏🙏to u all in India😥😥✝️ GOD IS WITH U ALL ✝️💜🙏✝️💜🙏

[jamie]

Lot's of people are dying these day's
Philippines by typhoon nalgae
South korea in (halloween party) stampede
Somalia by bombing
Now ... India by bridge collapse
Rip to those people died ... 😢

[thomasfx]

Tough day all around. Two bad things happened: 1) India left a low technology cable bridge in operation for over 100 years instead of replacing it years ago. We don’t know how adept the maintenance team is.
2) The teens on the bridge were using it beyond its design limits. Pulling on cables and jumping along the span with 400 of their pals undoubtedly loosened a cable shackle or stay, which failed the next time the bridge was loaded.

And don’t pray about this, either come up with competent Indian engineers or outsource this work.

[KayJay]

Hey guys lets all get on this bridge together.
Thus proving once again if all your friends were jumping off a bridge you would in fact likely join them.
An individual is smart. A group of people is just plain dumb.

[MrWallace]

With all the Indian scammers this is karma

[introvert]

Prayers for the recovery of Injured.🙏🙏Om Shanti to the departed Souls🕉