Crews pulled three more bodies from the rubble of a collapsed highway overpass in India, bringing the number of people killed to 27, authorities said.
The bodies were pulled out Saturday, said police official S. Gosh, two days after the collapse Thursday of an overpass under construction in Kolkata
Massive chunks of steel and concrete buried moving cars and pedestrians, prompting a frantic rescue operation.
Residents, authorities and an army of hard-hatted rescue crews toiled under bright lights, looking for survivors under slabs of concrete.
Officials questioned
Police questioned 12 officials from the company that was building the structure as investigators tried to determine what happened.
It’s unclear whether they will be formally arrested or charged.
The Indian construction company IVRCL faces charges of attempted murder, mischief and criminal conspiracy, said Nurul Absar, the Kolkata police chief.
‘A God’s act’
IVRCL did not immediately respond to the charges, but an executive said it was not his construction company’s fault.
“It’s nothing but a God’s act,” K. Panduranga Rao said, according to CNN IBN. “So far in 27 years, we have constructed several number of bridges … it never happened.”
But this is not the first time bridges or overpasses have collapsed in India.
A bridge fell on an express train in Bhagalpur in 2006, killing dozens of passengers.
Three years later, 30 workers died when a scaffolding on a bridge in Kota crashed down.
And in eastern Kolkata, not far from Thursday’s collapse, an overpass collapsed three years ago, sending a truck careening into a canal. The people inside were rescued.
It’s unclear whether IVRCL had any connection to those incidents.
Parents killed
Ahhiskek Kanoi’s parents died in Thursday’s collapse. Their burned bodies, he said, were found in “very bad” condition.
“I couldn’t even recognize them,” Kanoi said.
Eighty other people were pulled out, injured but alive, the National Disaster Management Authority said.
