Modi condoles footbridge crash deaths

New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday expressed his anguish on the death of people due to the foot overbridge accident in Mumbai.

“Deeply anguished by the loss of lives due to the foot over bridge accident in Mumbai. My thoughts are with the bereaved families. Wishing that the injured recover at the earliest. The Maharashtra Government is providing all possible assistance to those affected,” he said in a tweet.

At least five persons were killed and another 30 injured, including some critically, when a portion of an overhead pedestrian bridge outside the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus came crashing down on Thursday.

Congress President Rahul Gandhi also expressed his condolences.

“I am very sad to hear about the Mumbai foot over bridge accident. I express my deep condolences to the families of the people who died in the accident. I pray that those who are injured recover as soon as possible,” he said in a Facebook post in Hindi. Six people have been reported dead and 32 injured in the past 12 hours since a portion of an overhead pedestrian bridge outside the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus came crashing down here.

Police registered cases against Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Indian Railway officials charging them with culpable homicide.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has announced Rs5 lakh ex gratia each to the kin of deceased and Rs 50,000 to the injured. He has also ordered a high level probe into the Thursday’s incident. Railways, senior police officials, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and BMC teams were overseeing operations on Friday.

This was the third footbridge collapse in the city in the last 18 months — occurred around 7.35pm as the bridge was reportedly overloaded with commuters hurrying to their homes, the BMC Disaster Control said.

The victims identified so far include three women — Apoorva Prabhu, 35, Ranjana Tambe, 40, and Bhakti Shinde, 40. The two men dead are Zahid Siraj Khan, 32 and Tapendra Singh, 35.

Connecting the CSMT’s suburban platform No.1 with the B.T. Lane near The Times of India Building and the Anjuman-e-Islam School, it was used by thousands of daily commuters rushing to catch the local trains on Central Railway and the Harbour Line.

Indo-Asian News Service