Indian police on Friday opened a case of culpable homicide against the company that had been building a flyover which collapsed in Kolkata, killing at least 23 people and injuring dozens. Rescuers with cranes and jackhammers struggled on Friday to clear shattered concrete slabs and twisted girders from the 100-metre (110-yard) length of the flyover that on Thursday crashed down on pedestrians and vehicles in a road below.
Over 100 people have been rescued, many with serious injuries, but chances of finding more survivors dwindled after authorities removed crushed cars and a bus from the rubble in a teeming commercial district near the city's Girish Park. "It is being ensured that there are no more dead bodies under the debris," S.S. Guleria, deputy inspector general of the National Disaster Response Force, told Reuters Television.
Television channels broadcast images of autorickshaws and a crowd of people suddenly obliterated by a mass of falling concrete. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, whose centre-left party is seeking re-election soon in the state of West Bengal, said those responsible would not be spared and blamed the previous state government, which awarded the flyover contract in 2007. But she herself faces questions about the project. The Telegraph newspaper reported in November that Banerjee had wanted the flyover - already five years overdue - to be completed by February.
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