A young girl has died and 70 more are injured an overcrowded footbridge collapsed into a rocky river in Indian-controlled Kashmir.
Over 100 people, celebrating a festival, were crammed on the low metal bridge which could not withstand the weight of the revellers celebrating the spring harvest season in Udhampur, near Jammu, India.
Joginder Singh, a civil administrator in the Udhampur district, said the narrow bridge’s maximum capacity was around three dozen.
The girl died after being taken to a hospital, and at least seven people were in critical condition, Singh said.
The bridge’s red railings and green deck lay twisted across the riverbed following the collapse, as onlookers stood on the banks or waded into the water.
In October, at least 132 people died when a century-old suspension bridge collapsed into a river in the western state of Gujarat, sending hundreds plunging into the water. It was one of the country’s worst accidents in the past decade.
Authorities said the structure collapsed under the weight of hundreds of people. Security footage of the disaster showed the bridge shaking violently and people trying to keep hold of its cables and green-coloured metal fencing before the aluminium walkway gave way and crashed into the river below.
Pictures from the disaster site showed the bridge split in the middle and the metal walkway hanging down, its cables snapped in places.
At least 177 survivors were pulled from the river.
“There were just too many people on the bridge. We could barely move,” Sidik Bai, 27, said while recovering from injuries in a hospital bed in Morbi.
Sidik said he jumped into the water when the bridge began to crack and saw his friend being crushed by its metal walkway. He survived by clinging to the bridge’s cables, but his friend didn’t make it.
“Everyone was crying for help, but one by one they all began disappearing in the water,” Sidik said.
