By Sudeshna Sarkar, IANS
Kathmandu : Doleful eyewitness accounts started pouring in as Nepal grappled with its worst accident in recent times after a bridge collapsed in the remote midwest, killing at least 15 and causing hundreds to fall into the icy-cold river below.
As Nepal Army, police, the Red Cross and locals continued searching the Bheri river in Surkhet district for survivors after a suspension bridge plummeted down under the weight of about 500 to 1,000 people, 15 bodies had been found till late Tuesday, most of them children and women. The youngest victim was only five months old.
“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.