A second body was retrieved from underneath the debris of the Majherhat bridge, a part of which collapsed on Tuesday instantly killing one and injuring 26, two of them critically, while two more persons had remained traceless even till 30 hours after the accident.
As large parts of south-eastern Kolkata and adjoining sections of South 24-Parganas including Diamond Harbour and neighbouring industrial belts plummeted into untold traffic jam Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee who was in Darjeeling, on Wednesday flew back to Kolkata and drove straight to the accident site from the airport to take stock of the situation.
Though she would not fix blame on any particular institution, “keeping all the angles of investigation open,” Banerjee said the piling works carried on by the Metro Railways a few yards away could be a plausible cause as it was shaking the nearby areas “like it is during earthquakes.”
Banerjee who had called an “emergency meeting” on Wednesday noon to find out the next course of action had entrusted a team headed by Chief Secretary to inquire into the reasons of collapse. She asked the departments to find out alternative routes.
Sources in the PWD said a warning bell about the deteriorating health of the 54 year-old-bridge had been sounded about two years ago and even tenders were called for its repair as many as six times since 2017.
To enable about 50 lakh people from south-eastern Kolkata and suburbs to reach their work places circumventing the collapsed Majherhat Bridge.
“The police have registered an FIR and investigations are on. No reason will be overlooked and every angle will be looked into,” she said immediately disbursing an exgratia amount for the victims.
“We have immediately disbursed a cheque of Rs 5 lakh to the kin of the dead though death cannot be measured in terms of money,” Banerjee who took account of the site in details said. The Government also sanctioned Rs one lakh for those critically injured and Rs 10,000 who had received minor injuries.
Even as formalities were being worked by the Government agencies sources in the PWD said that a warning bell about the deteriorating health of the 54 year-old-bridge had been sounded about two years ago and even tenders were called for its repair as many as six times since 2017.
“The Rail India Technical and Economic Service (RiTES) had warned us about the condition of the bridge and had advised that a repair work should be conducted. But there was no concrete report as such from them,” sources in the PWD said adding “the repair work got stuck in bureaucratic red-tape.”
Evidently no work order was released for the latest tender submitted as late as in May this year, sources maintained. However others said repair works were to begin soon.
After the collapse of the Vivekanada Flyover in March 2016, the State Government had appointed RiTES to survey the conditions of different bridges in Kolkata.
Bengal has witnessed at least four major bridge collapses in the past a few years the biggest such incident happening in 2016 when the under-construction Vivekananda Flyover at Posta in busy Burrabazar area of North Kolkata collapsed in March 2016.