On Tuesday evening, a part of an under-construction flyover near the Cantonment railway station in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh collapsed, killing 18 people and injuring innumerable others.
The fallen slab crushed a bus, half-a-dozen vehicles and at least 18 pedestrians. Three people were luckily alive and were rescued. A lot of other injured people, however, are still believed to be trapped under the slab and are being rescued, according to Arvind Kumar, principal secretary, home.
Arvind Kumar said that the flyover had been 56% completed and was being built at a cost of ₹129 crore. The portion of the flyover that had collapsed had been completed earlier this year in February.
According to the National Disaster Response Force inspector Neeraj Kumar, seven NDRF teams i.e. around 325 personnel have been involved with the rescue and relief operations but the death toll numbers are expected to rise. According to eyewitnesses, one of the pillars of the flyover suddenly collapsed and sent a huge slab crashing on the vehicles and pedestrians passing underneath it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has expressed his grief and concern on the incident with a Twitter message, he said he was extremely saddened by the loss of lives and has asked the state officials to provide all possible support to the victims. This came while Modi was addressing party workers in New Delhi, after BJP appeared as the single largest power in Karnataka election yesterday.
Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath instructed Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya and Minister of State Nilkanth Tiwari to be on the scene in Varanasi and supervise the relief operations. He also constituted a three-person probe team led by Agriculture Production Commissioner R. P. Singh, to investigate the incident in 48 hours, find the authorities responsible for this and propose an action against those whose negligence resulted in the incident.
Adityanath has also expressed grief over the deaths and has announced an ex gratia payment of ₹5 lakh to the families of the dead and ₹2 lakh each to the injured.
