Survivors of Nepal Bridge Collapse is Ongoing
Posted on Wednesday, December 26, 2007 at 8:00 PM by Sifu Smith
Troops joined police searching Wednesday for hundreds of people missing
a day after a bridge collapsed killing 16 and injuring 40 more in a
steep river gorge in Nepal, officials said.
Nearly 400 people were on the bridge over the Bheri river, 380 kilometres (240 miles) west of the capital Kathmandu, when disaster struck on Tuesday afternoon, witnesses said.
Police said 35 people had been officially reported as missing by relatives on Wednesday and the number was expected to rise.
"The rescue operations began early Wednesday morning. Around 450 police and soldiers have been deployed to scour the river banks from three locations," district administrator Anil Kumar Pandey told AFP by phone.
The 500-metre (1,650-foot) bridge, only a year old and made of metal and steel coils, plunged into the gorge after a catastrophic failure of one of the supporting pillars that rose 50 metres above the water level, officials said.
Despite the search efforts, including two helicopters that were scouring the river, hopes of finding people still alive appeared remote.
Survivors of Nepal Bridge Collapse is Ongoing