Mizoram railway bridge collapse: 23 bodies recovered; searches stopped

 AIZAWL: With one more body found on Friday, a total of 23 bodies were recovered in Mizoram's Sairang area, where an under-construction railway bridge collapsed on Wednesday, officials said. Aizawl District Deputy Commissioner Nazuk Kumar said that one more body was found at the accident site, taking the total number of bodies recovered since Wednesday to 23. "As there is no other missing person due to the mishap, the joint search operation was closed on Friday afternoon," she said.

Soon after the railway bridge collapsed near the mountainous Sairang area, about 21 km from Aizawl, the Quick Response Team (QRT), along with the National and State Disaster Response Force, Border Security Force (BSF), and Young Mizo Association volunteers, jointly launched the search operations and recovered the dead bodies of all 23 workers.

Tracker dogs of the BSF also searched and located dead bodies under the debris, officials said. Two more workers and an engineer were injured and are now under medical treatment at the Civil Hospital in Aizawl. Officials said that most of the victims are from West Bengal's Malda district, and they were engaged in the bridge construction work by the Kolkata-based ABCI Infrastructures Pvt. Mizoram Transport Minister T.J. Lalnuntluanga said that the railway bridge construction was undertaken by the Kolkata company in 2018 and scheduled to be completed by December this year. The railway engineers said that the accident was due to the collapse of a gantry, which was being placed over the 104-metre piers of the under-construction bridge. The steel structure had suddenly toppled off towering columns into the forested valley below.

The railway bridge under the 51.38-km railway project was under construction over the Kurung river to connect Bairabi (near southern Assam) to Sairang. A high-level, four-member committee has been constituted by the Railway Ministry to probe the incident, railway officials said. The Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) has been implementing the 51.38-km railway project. NFR General Manager (Construction) Sunil Kumar Jha, along with senior officials from the NFR headquarters in Maligaon (Guwahati), are still camping in Mizoram. Sairang railway station is set to be the last railhead before reaching Mizoram's capital, Aizawl.

The vital railway project, which is scheduled to be completed by December this year, would connect mountainous Aizawl with the country's railway network. There are 32 tunnels (12.67 km total length) and 16 cut-and-cover tunnels (2.58 km total length) along the 51.38 km-long Bairabi to Sairang stretch of the broad gauge railway line, which traverses through Thingdawl and Tlangnuam areas under Kolasib and Aizawl districts, respectively. There are 55 major bridges, of which six are tall bridges having a height of more than 70 metres (the tallest being 104 metres), 87 minor bridges, five road overbridges, and eight road underbridges.

The Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw also announced an ex-gratia of Rs 10 lakh for the deceased, Rs 2 lakh for grievous injuries, and Rs 50,000 for minor injuries. (IANS)

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