'No more survivors' in collapsed overpass

Rescuers remove the remains of a person from the rubble of an under-construction overpass that collapsed in Kolkata, India, on Friday. Rupak de Chowdhuri / Reuters

Kolkata accident kills at least 23 people and injures more than 80

Using saws, small cranes and bare hands, rescuers cleared the crumbled concrete on Friday and twisted steel from an overpass that collapsed onto a crowded Kolkata neighborhood, killing at least 23 people and injuring more than 80.

With more than half the debris cleared by Friday, 67 people have been pulled out alive, police said. By noon, rescuers said there was little hope of finding any more survivors.

"The rescue operation is in its last phase. There is no possibility of finding any person alive," said S.S. Guleria, deputy inspector general of the India's National Disaster Response Force. He said workers were focusing on the recovery of dead bodies and removal of the debris.

It was not clear how many people might still be missing, possibly trapped under the debris. Police have detained five officials of the construction company building the overpass.

Smashed yellow taxis, a crushed truck, destroyed rickshaws and the bloody legs of trapped people jutted from the fallen girders and concrete. Building and other construction collapses are common in India, where regulations are poorly enforced and companies often use substandard materials.

The partially constructed overpass spanned nearly the width of the street and was designed to ease traffic through the densely crowded Bara Bazaar neighborhood in the capital of the east Indian state of West Bengal. The steel girders had already been fixed, and on Thursday the concrete was poured into the framework.

Within hours, as the concrete was drying, about 100 meters of the overpass fell, while other sections remained standing.

Whole building shook

"I heard an explosion, a solid one," said resident Rabindra Kumar Gupta, who had been home eating lunch when the overpass crashed down around 12:30 pm on Thursday. "My apartment shook. The whole building shook. When I looked outside, there was a lot of smoke."

Crowds waited anxiously near the rescue area to see if neighbors and friends had survived. The intersection had been a place where street vendors and service workers regularly plied their trades.

"There used to be a tailor who sat here on this corner. We wonder about him. A cigarettes and tobacco vendor - we knew everyone who used to stay around this crossing," resident Pankaj Jhunjhunwala said. "Until this rubbish is removed, we can't say for sure where they are or how this happened."

With army troops and personnel from the National Disaster Response Force joining the effort, police said they expected the rescue and cleanup to be completed on Friday.

Workers in yellow hard-hats operated huge cranes, bulldozers and other equipment through the night to clear the rubble and pry apart the concrete slabs. They also used cutting torches to break up metal beams.

The operation was a "very, very challenging task", said O.P. Singh, chief of the disaster response force. Rescuers also used dogs and special cameras to find people who were trapped, he said.

"The area was very, very crowded. Motorized rickshaws, taxis ... there was a lot of traffic," one witness told NDTV television.

AP - AFP

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