GUJARAT MODEL! 13 killed as vehicles fall into river after bridge collapses

NT Bureau, Agencies

Vadodara: Thirteen persons, including two siblings, were killed and nine others rescued, some of them with injuries, after multiple vehicles plunged into the Mahisagar river when a portion of a four-decade-old bridge collapsed in Vadodara district on Wednesday morning, . residents as well as a team of the NDRF was still underway at the site, officials said.

A slab of the Gambhira bridge, which connects central Gujarat to the Saurashtra region, caved in, killing ten persons. Once hailed by the BJP as the blueprint for India’s progress, the Gujarat Model now stands ex posed, 'promising development, delivering failure.' Also, it brought back memories of the Morbi bridge tragedy in Gujarat in which 141 people were killed in 2022.

Visuals from the site showed the entire chunk of the slab of the bridge between two piers has collapsed. The slab col lapse caused the vehicles, which were passing through the bridge, to plunge into the river. The SP said the 10 to 15 metres long slab of the bridge came crashing down at around 7.30 am.

The rescue operation, involv ing fire brigade personnel, local At least half a dozen vehicles two trucks, two vans, an au torickshaw and a two-wheeler – fell into the river after the bridge collapsed. Two other vehicles that came dangerously close to falling in the river were dragged away to a safer location.