Five students dead, 12 missing as bridge collapses in Kashmir

muzaffarabad — At least five students were killed and 12 others were reported missing on Sunday after a bridge collapsed at a tourist site in Pakistani Kashmir, officials said, adding there was little hope of finding survivors.

The bridge, which overlooked a ravine in mountainous Neelum district, collapsed after some three dozen university students walked across it to view a waterfall.

“We have recovered four bodies of boys and one of a girl. Twelve others are still missing and we don’t have any hope about them (surviving) because the water is very cold”, said Chaudhry Imtiaz, a senior government official in Kashmir’s capital Muzaffarabad.

Imtiaz told AFP eight other students were injured in the accident.

Local police official Saleem Durrani confirmed the toll and said that the authorities had posted a warning near the bridge, telling visitors to walk across it in small numbers because it was only designed to accommodate five people at a time. “The bridge collapsed because around 40 people climbed it at the same time,” Durrani said.

“Its cemented foundation could not sustain the weight”, he added.

The students, in their early 20s, attend the medical college at Faisalabad.

One of the survivors said while he and one of his friends struggled to get hold of some rock in the stream and eventually succeeded, others could not withstand the force of gushing water and were swept away. He thanked the locals for rescuing them.

Neelum valley is one of the most attractive tourist locations in Kashmir, which draws hundreds of thousands of tourists from across the country, particularly in the scorching summers. The area is, however, prohibited to foreign tourists because of its proximity to the heavily militarised Line of Control, the de facto border that splits the disputed Himalayan region between the nuclear-armed neighbours India and Pakistan. — AFP, AP