MUMBAI (India), March 15 (NNN-AGENCIES) – Indian police said Friday they had filed a negligence case against Mumbai’s civic and railway authorities after a footbridge collapsed killing six people and injuring dozens more.
The bridge, which was under repair, gave away around 7.30 pm on Thursday as rush hour commuters made their way into Chhatrapati Shivaji
terminus, the city’s main train station.
It was the latest accident to highlight creaking infrastructure in India’s
financial capital and came almost two years after 23 people died in a crush
on a narrow overcrowded footbridge at another station.
Three women and three men, aged between 32 and 55, died in Thursday’s
tragedy. Another 33 people were injured.
Indian media reported that three who succumbed to their injuries were
nurses. Two of them died at the hospital where they worked after doctors were unable to save them.
Mumbai police spokesman Manjunath Singe said in a WhatsApp message to
journalists that a first information report had been registered against
officials for “causing death by negligence”.
Experts pointed the finger of blame at the railway network’s creaking
infrastructure, which has long struggled to cope with several million daily
passengers.
About 7.5 million passengers commute in nearly 2,500 trains daily on
Mumbai’s colonial-era rail network, a lifeline for the city’s 20 million
residents.
An average of almost 10 people die on the suburban railway every day,
either from falling off crowded trains or while crossing the tracks.
Commuters say investment in the railway’s crumbling infrastructure has not kept up with the city’s burgeoning population. — NNN-AGENCIES
