MORBI BRIDGE COLLAPSE: HOPES FADE FOR SURVIVORS IN GUJARAT TRAGEDY

A RESCUE operation - begun after a pedestrian suspension bridge collapsed in India's western state of Gujarat - has been scaled down as hopes fade of more survivors being found.

Officials say 141 people - most of them women, children or elderly - died after the bridge collapsed on Sunday evening.

The 140-year-old structure in Morbi town reopened a week ago after repairs.

There was overcrowding on the bridge - a major local tourist attraction - at the time it collapsed, officials said.

Police are questioning eight people in connection with the incident, a police official confirmed to BBC Gujarati. Those being questioned included security personnel and ticket sellers.

The official refused to confirm whether employees from Oreva Group, the firm which was in charge of maintaining the bridge, are also being questioned.

Questions have been raised over why Oreva Group, a company which once described itself as the "world's largest clock manufacturing company" - before it also began making lighting products, battery-operated bikes, home appliances and TV sets - was given responsibility for maintaining a bridge.

Concerns have also been raised about whether safety checks were carried out before the bridge was reopened.

The 230m (754ft) bridge on the Machchhu river was built in 1880, during British rule in India.

As it happened: India bridge collapse tragedy

In travel brochures, a visit to the Julto Pul (or the Hanging Bridge) is listed among "the top 10 things to do in Morbi" and it attracts a large number of sightseers and local people on holidays and at festivals.

Officials have not yet said how many people were on the bridge when tragedy struck at around 18:40 (13:10 GMT) on Sunday, but estimates put it between 400 and 500.

More than 177 people have been rescued, officials said. On Monday morning, a dozen boats with members of the national and state disaster response teams searched for survivors while divers from the Indian navy were on standby, reported BBC Gujarati’s Roxy Gagdekar who was at the scene.

Four cranes were deployed to pull out the wreckage and rescuers looked for bodies trapped underneath.