By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : The Nepal government Wednesday announced an investigation into the bridge collapse in a remote village a day earlier in which at least 15 people were killed and scores remained missing as rescuers continued work braving sharp chill.
The home ministry in Kathmandu issued a statement Wednesday announcing that the government of Prime Minister Girija Prasad Koirala had ordered the formation of a high-level committee to investigate the collapse of the suspension bridge on the Bheri river in midwestern Surkhet district Tuesday afternoon, which is feared to have plunged over 300 people in the icy waters below.
The government has also announced an ex gratia payment of Nepali Rs.25,000 (about $400) to the families of those killed in the mishap and free treatment for the injured.
Till Tuesday night, 15 bodies had been recovered from the river. Mostly children and women, the youngest was just five months old.
On Wednesday morning, Nepal Army, police, Armed Police Force, Red Cross and locals rescued three more people from the river; all were alive.
Home ministry officials told IANS five seriously injured people were being brought to Kathmandu by army helicopter for medical treatment.
Doleful eyewitness accounts started pouring in as Nepal grappled with its worst accident in recent times.
“I heard a sound like a bomb explosion,” a terrified Rabindra Buda, aged about 10 years, told rescuers after he had been pulled out of the river.
“Then the bridge started swaying. I felt myself falling and hit the water. You couldn’t see the river any more. It was full of human heads,” he added.
Buda said he was accompanying his family on their annual trip to the fair at Sobhaghat village.
He tried to get on the bridge that connected Daha Chaur village with Mehelkuna but it was so tightly packed with people that he couldn’t cross it.
It proved lucky for him since he was at one end of the bridge and was rescued.
The nearly 150 people – mostly women and children – who are said to be still missing were at the centre of the bridge.
Hundreds of pilgrims from surrounding villages were heading towards the fair, held in a remote village about 40 km east of the main town in the district, Birendranagar.
While about 100 people are said to have swum to safety, about three dozen were rescued and taken to various hospitals. Some of the victims were yet to be identified.
One of the pillars supporting the bridge snapped under the weight, causing it to collapse, police said.
The 200 metre long bridge was built only last year.