Gujarat authorities have launched a criminal investigation into the collapse of a bridge that killed more than 130 people in the home state of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi.
Harsh Sanghavi, the western state’s home minister, announced on Monday that at least 134 people had been killed after cables on the newly reopened Morbi bridge snapped on Sunday.
Nearly 180 people were rescued, according to news agencies carrying reports by local officials after emergency workers toiled through the night. Authorities warned that the death toll could rise.
The disaster threatens to overshadow a three-day visit by Modi to Gujarat, which is set to hold legislative assembly elections this year.
The premier has cancelled one event with local organisers from his Bharatiya Janata Party, local media reported. But Modi still plans to open several development projects in the state that he led as chief minister from 2001 to 2014.
“Rarely in my life have I experienced such pain,” Modi said of the Morbi bridge disaster during a public address on Monday to commemorate the birthday of Vallabhbhai Patel, India’s first home minister and the deputy prime minister after the country won independence from Britain.
Modi added that the government would award compensation of Rs200,000 ($2,400) to families of the dead and Rs50,000 to injured survivors.
Video footage showed chaotic scenes as rescuers dragged people from the Machchu river while others clung to the remains of the dangling pedestrian suspension bridge, a popular attraction marketed by Gujarat Tourism as “a nostalgic reminder of Victorian London”.
The 233m-long, colonial-era bridge had reopened less than a week before the tragedy after being renovated by a private company.
Morbi municipality chief Sandeep Jhala said that the local council “had not yet issued a fitness certificate” following the renovation, the BBC reported.
India’s armed forces joined the rescue effort, while the Gujarat state government, which is controlled by the BJP, said a high-level committee would be set up to probe the disaster.
CCTV footage taken on the bridge at the moment of the accident shows several men deliberately trying to swing the hanging bridge back and forth, before the cables supporting the structure snap, sending dozens of people tumbling into the water below.
Hundreds of visitors had descended on the bridge, a popular ticketed tourist site, during India’s Diwali holiday when it collapsed. Women and children were among the victims.
It is one of the region’s deadliest accidents since the 1979 dam failure on the Machchu river, which killed hundreds of people.
