Mumbai bridge crash: 6 dead; BMC-Railways face heat

Six people have been reported dead and 32 injured in the past 12 hours since a portion of an overhead pedestrian bridge outside the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus came crashing down here.

Police registered cases against Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) and Indian Railway officials charging them with culpable homicide.

Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has announced Rs 5 lakh ex gratia each to the kin of deceased and Rs 50,000 to the injured. He has also ordered a high level probe into the Thursday's incident.

Railways, senior police officials, National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) and BMC teams were overseeing operations on Friday.

This was the third footbridge collapse in the city in the last 18 months -- occurred around 7.35 p.m. as the bridge was reportedly overloaded with commuters hurrying to their homes, the BMC Disaster Control said.

The victims identified so far include three women -- Apoorva Prabhu, 35, Ranjana Tambe, 40, and Bhakti Shinde, 40. The two men dead are Zahid Siraj Khan, 32 and Tapendra Singh, 35.

Connecting the CSMT's suburban platform No. 1 with the B.T. Lane near The Times of India Building and the Anjuman-e-Islam School, it was used by thousands of daily commuters rushing to catch the local trains on Central Railway and the Harbour Line.

Though debris have been cleared, traffic restriction on D.N. Road continues, a traffic official said.

--IANS

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