Locals recall moments of horror
Chief minister Mamata Banerjee orders probe led by state chief secretary into the collapse
KOLKATA: Eyewitnesses and people who were crossing a bridge in Kolkata when a section of it collapsed on Tuesday recounted moments of shock, saying they were lucky to have escaped.
“I was at the wheel of my cab and was going from Behala towards Ekbalpore. As my car reached the middle of a bridge that I have crossed thousands of times, the ground below me began to shake. My car started to sink,” said Madan Jha, 38.
Soon, Jha said, he felt a blunt pain in his foot and realised the door had jammed. Eventually, Jha and the passenger he was ferrying made it out.
“Within a few seconds I was completely disoriented. Then I realised I was indeed alive,” said Sishir Chakraborty, the 61-yearold passenger in Jha’s cab.
Jha and Charaborty were travelling on the Majerhat bridge in the Alipore area when it caved in around 4.45 pm. Police confirmed the death of one person and said 21 others, including three women were injured.
The deaths could have been higher, chief minister Mamata Banerjee said, had the several labourer living in a temporary arrangement under the flyover been there. “I went to the market. The structure collapsed a few minutes before I returned. Two of those trapped are alive. I know Gautam Mondal and another one. A total of 65 of us used to stay in a temporary shelter under the bridge,” said one of the occupants of the make-shift room, who works as construction worker for a metro rail project nearby.
Subhashree Banerjee, a homemaker who lives close to the bridge at New Alipore, said, “My husband crossed the bridge in his car just about a couple of minutes. Though he was completely safe, he was stupefied by the disaster.”
As soon as the bridge collapsed, locals rushed to the rescue of those who came down with it. With no equipments, they used bare hands and whatever the could scavenge to try to reach those stuck in the debris. The traffic police on duty also joined in. “The real challenge was to extract those who were under the debris. I joined efforts with several others to pull out a person,” said Sabir Ahmed, a local.
“There were many who needed help. I could participate in the efforts to rescue five persons. Perhaps I should have done more,” he added.
Jha , whose car suffered only minor dents, also stepped up to help. He had a bottle of water inside his cab which he quickly brought out for those hurt. A minibus that also came down with the bridge did not, luckily, suffer major damage and most of the passengers reported only minor injuries. In all, around 25 people were rescued. Chief minister Banerjee said that thousands of people pass through the area and the government has to probe the accident. “A probe will be done by a committee headed by Chief Secretary Malay De to find out the cause of the collapse.”