Bodies under concrete slab, truck hanging precariously above: What rescue personnel at Vadodara bridge collapse site are up against
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Bodies under concrete slab, truck hanging precariously above: What rescue personnel at Vadodara bridge collapse site are up against
First responders and rescue personnel sift through the debris of the bridge collapse in Vadodara to pull out bodies, retrieve vehicles, and, on the off chance, find survivors. The object of their attention, and concern, is a truck sticking out precariously over the section of bridge that collapsed on Wednesday morning, killing at least 12 people. As the day wore on, it was this truck under which emergency crews also worked, trying to retrieve as many bodies as they could before sundown. Among the first bodies to be retrieved were those from the Eeco car in which 46-year-old Sonal Ramesh Padhiyar was travelling with her family to Bagdana in Bhavnagar to mark Guru Purnima. The driver of the hanging truck has been rescued but we cannot move the vehicle because of fears that it may fall or something else may come loose, a fire officer said. The fire department received a call about the disaster between 7.30am and 8 am and two emergency crews reached the spot shortly after, beginning rescue operations on a boat.
Its front wheels and bumper balanced on the cross beam of the bridge atop a pillar, its middle section and axles hanging in the air, and its back wheels just barely holding on to the section of the road where the slab break occurred, the eight-wheeled vehicle hung like Damocles’ Sword – right above the spot where first responders, including local residents and boatmen, were rushing to save people and retrieve the bodies from the Mahisagar river.
As the day wore on, it was this truck under which emergency crews also worked, trying to retrieve as many bodies as they could before sundown.
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Nikunj Azaad, a Station Fire Officer (STO) with the Vadodara Fire and Emergency Services (VFES), one of two senior officers directing operations, told The Indian Express, “The driver of the hanging truck has been rescued but we cannot move the vehicle because of fears that it may fall or something else may come loose.”
Azaad said the fire control department received a call about the disaster between 7.30am and 8 am and two emergency crews reached the spot shortly after, beginning rescue operations on a boat. “Most of the survivors had been pulled out of the water and we began the search for bodies,” he said.
When the first responders reached the site of the tragedy in Padra taluka of Vadodara, on the edge of Anand district, their main job was to ensure that all the bodies were retrieved, and some amount of closure given to the families of the deceased.
This work was still underway late on Wednesday evening when The Indian Express spoke to emergency and disaster crews.
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Surendra Singh, Commandant of the 6th Battalion of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), which is stationed in Waghodia area of Vadodara, said, “We got a call from SEOC (State Emergency Operation Centre) around 8.50 am and we immediately dispatched a team to the bridge-collapse site. When I reached there, I realised one team wasn’t enough. So, we deployed another one.”
The fire department coordinated with the NDRF, State Disaster Response Force (SDRF), Vadodara Rural Police and the Vadodara Collectorate, along with personnel from Anand District, to move the heavy vehicles and slabs of the bridge to reach the bodies.
Among the first bodies to be retrieved were those from the Eeco car in which 46-year-old Sonal Ramesh Padhiyar was travelling with her family to Bagdana in Bhavnagar to mark Guru Purnima. Sonal is the only one in her family to have survived the tragedy.
Azaad said, “In the Eeco car, we found the bodies of a boy and a girl, and two adult men, which we retrieved. Then we moved to the other vehicles.”
Azad said the personnel found two more bodies under a slab of the bridge. “One had a shoulder and the other had a leg stuck under the slab. We could not reach them until we moved the slab,” said Azaad in the evening as daylight was fading over the crash site.
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Shortly after, field halogen lights were ordered and lit up across the site. Standing at the bottom of the bridge on the bank of the Mahisagar, NDRF Commandant Singh, who was directing the operations, said, “We have retrieved two bodies. It was a difficult job as the bodies were stuck under the slab of the bridge. We ordered an 80-tonne crane to remove the slab and a truck lying on top in order to reach the bodies.”
Firefighters estimate that the depth of the Mahisagar in the middle is around 10 feet. This middle section is where the slab had collapsed, making it not only difficult for emergency crews to manoeuver the vehicles that have fallen into the river, but also move them to the banks to check if there were bodies underneath them.
While the Eeco car, an auto rickshaw and a pickup truck had been moved closer to the banks in shallow water by evening, the cranes had just begun to move the trucks when last reports came in. “We are trying to retrieve the vehicles, including light vehicles and trucks, and attempting to move the slabs. We retrieved one truck but two are still in the water. The height and angles of the vehicles are making it (retrieving them) a very difficult proposition,” said Commandant Singh.
Apart from the heavy vehicles, the personnel said they had spotted a bike inside the river but were uncertain if there were more bodies. “We will know more only when we have moved all the debris,” said Singh, as he walked on towards his waiting personnel, trying to direct the lifting of a truck lying atop the fallen slab.
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Asked how long the operations were likely to continue, Azaad said, “It’s going to be a long night.”