At least 24 laborers were killed on Wednesday when the railway bridge they were building across a ravine in India’s remote northeast collapsed, with four others feared dead.
The incident took place in Sairang, a town around 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of Mizoram state capital Aizawl — an outlying pocket of the country near the border with Myanmar.
Video footage shared by Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga showed a metal frame that had toppled off towering columns into a wooded valley below.
“Deeply saddened and affected by this tragedy,” he wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Zoramthanga, who uses one name, added that he was grateful that people had “come out in large numbers to help with rescue operations.”
Forty laborers had been working at the site, according to the Northeast Frontier Railway.
An employee of the agency, who requested anonymity as he was not authorized to talk to the media, said 24 bodies had been recovered from the wreckage.
Another four people were still missing, he added.
A committee has been set up to investigate the cause of the accident.
“Rescue operations are underway and all possible assistance is being given to those affected,” the office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
Modi was “pained” by the accident and offered his “condolences to those who have lost their loved ones,” his office added.
The government will pay around $2,400 to the next of kin of those killed, it said.
Railways Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw also announced separate compensation for those killed or injured in the accident.
Building and construction collapses are common during India’s June-September monsoon season, with old and rickety structures buckling under days of non-stop rain.
At least 20 workers were crushed to death in western India this month when a crane collapsed above an under-construction expressway outside the financial capital Mumbai.
Last year, at least 137 people were killed when a pedestrian bridge collapsed in Gujarat state, sending hundreds of people tumbling into a river or clinging to the wreckage while screaming for help in the dark.
The collapse of a flyover onto a busy street in Kolkata killed at least 26 people in 2016.
In 2011, at least 32 people were killed when a bridge packed with festival crowds collapsed near the hill town and popular tourist destination of Darjeeling.
And less than a week later, around 30 people were killed when a footbridge over a river in the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh collapsed.
Video footage posted by Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga showed a metal frame that had toppled off towering columns into a wooded valley below.
The Hindu newspaper, quoting state government officials, reported some 40 workers had been at the site when the bridge collapsed.
“Rescue operations are underway and all possible assistance is being given to those affected,” the office of Prime Minister Narendra Modi said.
Modi was “pained” by the accident and offered his “condolences to those who have lost their loved ones”, his office said on X.The state is trying to restore peace after it was hit by deadly ethnic violence that began in May, killing at least 180 people and driving tens of thousands from their homes.
Hundreds of structures have also crumbled down the mountains this week in landslides in the northwestern state of Himachal Pradesh, killing at least 68 people with about 15 missing, disaster management official Praveen Bhardwaj said.
The state’s chief minister, Sukhvinder Singh Sukhu, told the Indian Express newspaper he blamed indiscriminate construction and improper structural design among the reasons for the destruction.
In the neighbouring state of Uttarakhand, at least 16 people died in landslides this week with 15 missing by Wednesday, government figures showed.
Heavy seasonal monsoon showers since June 1 have brought rains exceeding the normal by 45 per cent and 18pc respectively in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, weather officials say, following significant volumes last month.
At least 88 people died in rain-related incidents in Himachal Pradesh last month, with 74 dying since June in Uttarakhand in events triggered by natural disasters, official data shows.
