At least 23 construction workers were killed when the gantry of a 100-meter-tall rail bridge which was being built in Mizoram collapsed at a site 21 km from the state capital Aizawl. All the construction workers were from West Bengal's Malda, including six members of a family. Three other workers were injured and an unspecified number of workers were reported missing from the site, state disaster management and rehabilitation minister Lalchamliana said.
Two members of a local quick-reaction team deployed by the state government rescued an injured engineer stuck atop one of the piers over the Kurung river, officials said. The accident site is close to Sairang, the final railhead in the northeastern hill state. It is a part of a 51.3 km track that begins at Bairabi on the Assam-Mizoram border and is an extension of a national effort to connect the capitals of eight northeastern states by rail.
Northeast Frontier Railway’s CPRO Sabyasachi De said, “We are probing if there were lapses on the part of the contractors or those overseeing work at the site.” This was the second tragedy to strike a railway construction site in the Northeast since 50 people were killed in a landslide that buried the under-construction Tupul railway yard and a Territorial Army post in Manipur’s Noney district on June 30 last year.
