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Bridge Collapses in India, Killing 23

Posted on: Thursday, 28 August 2003, 06:00 CDT

At least 23 people, including eight school children, were killed Thursday when a school van, two rickshaws and motorcycles plunged into a river after a concrete bridge collapsed in western India, officials said.

Twenty-three bodies had been fished out of the rain-swollen Daman Ganga River, said Assistant Inspector General of Police R.P. Upadhyaya.

Another eight people were missing and feared dead, Upadhyaya said.

Eight of the 12 school children in the van were among those killed, Upadhyaya said. Divers managed to pull four children to safety, he said.

Neha Mustafa, 13, said she managed to stay afloat by clinging to her empty water bottle.

"It was raining heavily when the bridge just vanished from beneath us and we suddenly found ourselves in the water," said Neha, who was returning from school in one of the rickshaws that plunged into the river.

The school van driver, Abdul Kadar Popat, managed to swim ashore after his vehicle went down.

Police inspector M.D. Pradip said nearly 100 naval divers had joined rescue efforts at the Daman Ganga River, 190 kilometers (120 miles) north of Bombay.

An eyewitness, Ketan Patel, said the bridge collapsed just as he was about to drive onto it.

"About 15 to 20 people were saved by fishermen," Patel told Star News television channel.

Daman was a Portuguese colony until it was returned to India in 1961. The bridge, built by the Portuguese, was only wide enough for one-way traffic and had been in disrepair for years, according to Daman residents.

The collapsed portion of the bridge was without any supporting pillars as they could not be built on the sandy soil below. Instead, the bridge was reinforced with iron bars.

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