An extremely sad and lamentable tragedy took place in Kolkata a few minutes before. An under-construction bridge situated at Vivekananda Flyover of this metro city collapsed suddenly, leaving 14 people dead and 78 feared injured. The number can be even more than this as one busy area has fallen prey to this unfortunate incident. According to the eye witnesses, there could be around 150 people under the debris.
Within no time the rescue team reached the spot and is trying to make sure no individual is left under the rubble of the broken bridge. Officials of Kolkata Police, Disaster Management Groups and Fire and Emergency Services are at present to make the disaster less unfortunate with the use of gas cutters to aid the people who are trapped. The government has set up a control room with the helpline number 1070.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi condemned this sad incident and said “I am shocked and saddened by collapse of under-construction flyover in Kolkata.”
Seeing the life and property damage this accident caused, a total compensation of Rs 5 lakh for the dead, Rs 2 lakh for the seriously injured and Rs 1 lakh for injured has been announced by the government. The speed in which these compensation announcements were made, in a way shows how slyly the government has tried to mitigate all the anticipated public blaming they can face in time. Mainly because the only question which will arise in each victims and eyewitness’ mind is that why have this bridge construction already consumed 7 whole years and still is the reason for such massive life and property damage.
To safeguard one’s part in the situation, IVRCL official said, “KMDA officials used to oversee the job. 70% work was done without any problems, don’t know what happened suddenly. We are working in this field for over 27 years, and nothing like this has happened before.”
One wonders how many more carelessly ignored mistakes the responsible authorities will commit to understand the worth of the sad consequences. We just hope an incident like this never happens in the future and all our condolences are there with the families of the poor victims.
