Cable bridge collapse kills at least 134 in India

Military teams were searching on Monday for people missing after a century-old cable suspension bridge collapsed into a river on Sunday in the western Indian state of Gujarat, sending hundreds of people plunging into the water and killing at least 134.

At least 177 survivors were pulled from the river and teams from the Army, Navy and Air Force were searching for others still missing, said Jigar Khunt, an information department official in Gujarat.

Live video reports showed hundreds of others desperately clinging to the broken structure and trying to make their way to safety, as crowds onshore shouted or swam to try to rescue those who had fallen in.

Police in Gujarat said they had detained nine people after registering a criminal case against unnamed individuals responsible for the renovation, maintenance and management of the bridge.

Authorities said the 19th-century, colonial-era pedestrian bridge over the Machchu River collapsed because it could not handle the weight of the large crowd, as the Hindu festival season drew hundreds of sightseers to the recently reopened tourist attraction.

The 232-meter bridge had been closed for repairs for almost six months and reopened just four days earlier for the Gujarati New Year. Visuals of the disaster site showed the bridge split in the middle and the metal carriageway hanging down, its metal cables snapped.

Gujarat Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi told reporters that 132 people were confirmed dead and many were admitted to hospitals in critical condition. Sanghavi said emergency responders and rescuers worked overnight to search for survivors. Most of the victims were teenagers, women and older people.

It was not immediately clear how many people were on the bridge when it collapsed, but survivors said it was so densely packed that the crowd was unable to move to safety when the cable strings began to snap.

"There were just too many people on the bridge. We could barely move," Sidik Bai, 27, said from a hospital bed while recovering from injuries.

Sidik said he jumped into the water when the bridge began to crack and saw his friend being crushed by the metal carriageway. He survived the disaster by climbing onto the bridge and holding onto its cables, but his friend did not make it.

"Everyone was crying for help, but one by one they all began disappearing in the water," Sidik said.

Local news channels ran photos of missing people shared by concerned relatives searching for their loved ones. Many family members raced to overcrowded hospitals looking for their kin.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who was in his home state of Gujarat on a three-day visit, said he was "deeply saddened" by the tragedy. His office announced compensation to the families of the dead and urged speedy rescue efforts.

"Rarely in my life would I have experienced such pain," Modi said during a public event in the state on Monday.

Modi was Gujarat's top elected official for 12 years before becoming India's prime minister in 2014.

A Gujarat state government election is expected in the coming months, and opposition parties have demanded an investigation into the collapse, saying that the bridge was reopened without having safety clearance. The claim could not be independently verified, but the state government said it has formed a special team to investigate the disaster.

State officials told local news media that the bridge — built by the British during the Victorian era and touted by the Gujarat government as an "engineering marvel" — might have been opened by the private company that runs it without a "fitness certificate".