Mumbai bridge collapse: 3 arrested and blame game begins

Three labourers died and six others were injured as an entire span was dislocated and came crashing down while launching a segment at the construction site of an elevated road near the Mumbai international airport.

The elevated road was being constructed as one of the connectors to the new terminal building of the Mumbai airport to the opening of the road leading to Marol Naka.

The construction is being undertaken by the GVK-controlled Mumbai International Airport Limited with Larsen and Toubro as the contractor.

Three employees of a company were arrested in connection with the collapse of a portion of the under-construction bridge, police said.

The arrested – Pechi Muttu Subramaniam (27), Subbaya Velu Shravanal (34) and Lakhbir Nirmal Singh (27) – were supervisors of the site and employed with Larsen and Toubro company, which had taken up the construction work of the bridge, they said.

The three were booked under sections 304 (II) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder), 337 (causing hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) and 338 (Causing grievous hurt by act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Indian Penal Code sections, they added.

The labourers were launching a segment through the cantilevering method of construction when it slipped causing the entire span, or the slabs between two piers, to dislocate and come crashing down. The accident took place at about 11pm on Wednesday night inside a barricaded area opposite the Hyatt Regency hotel near the airport. The span had about three segments.

"We have been working on this for three years and have finished 90 percent of the work of launching spans. There are only a few spans yet to be launched now. Launching in this particular area was left because there were some slum encroachments here that were not removed until recently," said an official from Larsen and Toubro on the condition of anonymity.

... contd.

ALSO READ

Fourth flag meeting fails, China refuses to budge

Sonia Gandhi consults A K Antony on Pawan Bansal issue

Coalgate probe: No accused or suspect let off, says CBI chief Ranjit Sinha

UPA only worried about 'nephews and uncles': Narendra Modi