Mamata Banerjee visits Majherhat Bridge collapse site, death toll touches 2, one more person pulled out from rubble

"What we have seen that it could have been a huge accident.It is due to the blessings of the God and the people that the number of death did not increase," she told reporters.

Banerjee confirmed that two people have died in the mishap so far.

Another body was recovered from underneath the rubble on Wednesday evening. The third person could be trapped inside- dead or alive, officials said.

The mishap left more than 20 people injured.

Mamata Banerjee returned to Kolkata after completing her trip to Darjeeling and visited the accident spot.

Following are some of the highlights of the CM's interaction with the media:

I had a talk with an engineer and other people. What we have seen that it could have been a huge accident.

It is due to the blessings of the God and the people that the number of death did not increase. Now the death toll is 2.
2 people are in CMRI and SSKM in critical condition.

Money cant be alternative to death but we have already disbursed INR 5 lakh each from disaster management to the family of deceased. INR 50,000 for injured will be given.

Full disaster team, police all department and local people worked well..

Local people cooperated.  Firhad Hakim and mayor worked well.

Called an emergency meeting at 3.30 tomorrow.

The engineer reported that the bridge was 54 years old.

We monitor every bridge after 6 months.

Papers of old bridges do not have papers.

Now we are keeping notice. Trying to do time to time monitoring of bridges.

Local people said vibrations occurred due to Metro. This is factual. It happened in other metro constructions as well.

Full investigation will take place. We don't want to draw a conclusion and give certificate right now.

We will discuss extensively tomorrow.

Bridge Collapse:

A nearly 200 feet block of a major bridge over a railway track collapsed on Majherhat canal beside railway tracks.

Several private cars and motorcycles, three app based cabs and one minibus fell down with the wreckage.

Local police, state fire and emergency services officials, Disaster Management Group (DMG) personnel, a unit of NDRF and a team from the Indian Army joined the rescue operation after the collapse of the bridge.

The rescue operation is still underway.

A day after a portion of Majherhat railway over bridge (ROB) collapsed, the Calcutta High Court on Wednesday granted permission to an advocate to lodge a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) into the disaster while the city police has registered a suo motu FIR against the bridge's maintenance agencies, reports said.

The Eastern Railway authorities have denied that the bridge collapse was owing to the impact of their construction work for metro.

(Reporting by Souvik Ghosh with additional input by Deepayan Sinha,Image by Subhodeep Sardar/IBNS)