Kolkata flyover collapse death toll rises

Kolkata flyover collapse death toll rises

The death toll in the collapse of a flyover under construction in the Indian city of Kolkata rose to 23 on Friday after rescuers worked through the night with cranes and jackhammers to clear huge slabs of steel and concrete.

Ninety people were saved after a 100-metre (110-yard) length of the flyover broke off at one end and slammed into pedestrians and vehicles below on a road through a busy commercial district near Girish Park in the eastern city.

Television channels broadcast images of a street scene with two autorickshaws and a crowd of people suddenly obliterated by a mass of falling concrete that narrowly missed cars crawling in a traffic jam.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose centre-left party is seeking re-election in the state of West Bengal next month, rushed to the scene on Thursday (March 31).

Banerjee, 61, said those responsible for the disaster would not be spared and blamed the previous state government that had awarded the flyover contract in 2007.

Yet she herself faces questions about a construction project that has been plagued by delays and safety fears under her rule.

A newspaper reported last November that Banerjee wanted the flyover – already five years overdue – to be completed by February. Project engineers expressed concerns over whether this would be possible, the Telegraph newspaper said at the time.

Indian company IVRCL was building the 2-km (1.2-mile) Vivekananda Road flyover, according to its web site. Its shares closed down 5 percent on Thursday.

A senior IVRCL manager has drawn national condemnation for calling the disaster an “act of God”.

The company’s director of operations said on Thursday in Hyderabad where it’s based that it would co-operate fully with investigators and insisted no inferior quality materials were used.

Rescue operations were slow to get under way at first, with nearby residents forming crowds several deep as they tried to help trapped people.

But three cranes working overnight managed to clear some of the wreckage and free access to vehicles with people still believed to be trapped inside.

Getting survivors to hospital was complicated by the lack of access for ambulances to the flyover, which is crowded by buildings on either side. Safety standards were lax, witnesses said.

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