The toll in Gambhira Bridge collapse over the Mahisagar River in Vadodara district of Gujarat has risen to 17 with three people missing, officials aware of the matter said, even as Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel on Thursday suspended four engineers of the state’s roads and buildings department. Rescuers and residents look for survivors after several vehicles fell into a river following the collapse of a portion of a bridge near Vadodara in Gujarat on July 9. (AP)

Five more bodies have been recovered since Wednesday night when the official toll was 12 and rescue operations have been going on for over 36 hours since the incident.

“We have recovered 17 bodies so far. According to our list, three other people are missing. Five persons have been rescued, and their condition is stable,” Vadodara district collector Anil Dhameliya said.

CM Patel, who handles the roads and buildings department, had asked experts to prepare a report on the repairs, inspections and quality checks conducted at the bridge, and the decision to suspend the four engineers was taken on the basis of this report, a government release said.

Those suspended with immediate effect are executive engineer N M Nayakawala, deputy executive engineers U C Patel and R T Patel as well as assistant engineer J V Shah, the release added.

The incident happened around 7.30am on Wednesday when a span of the Gambhira Bridge gave way at Padra, sending two lorries, an SUV, a pickup van and an auto-rickshaw crashing into the Mahisagar River.

The 1985-built bridge, which connects Anand and Vadodara districts, had been increasingly used by heavy lorries seeking to avoid tolls on the six-lane Mumbai-Ahmedabad national highway—a detour that shortened their journey by 30-35 kilometres, locals said.

Rescue operations have been ongoing near Mujpur village in Padra, with teams working to locate the missing people and retrieve bodies from the debris.

A truck laden with ceramic tiles, stuck in thick sludge in the Mahisagar riverbed, became a focal point of the search as it was suspected to have trapped victims or held clues to the whereabouts of the missing.

Floodlights were used late into the night, and steel cables attached to an excavator uprighted the truck, after which three bodies were recovered, said officials.

The bodies were sent to the Padra Community Health Centre for medical examination and handed over to their families. Gujarat chief minister Bhupendra Patel announced a compensation of ₹4 lakh for the families of those who died in the bridge collapse.

In November 2024 a proposal was cleared by the state government to build a new bridge for a project cost of ₹217 crore, said an official aware of the matter.

By late Wednesday evening, two deceased were identified, said officials. The collapse disrupted traffic between Anand, Vadodara, Bharuch, and Saurashtra. Heavy vehicles now use the Vasad route, and light vehicles take the Umeta route.

The collapse has brought renewed scrutiny to the overall condition of Gujarat’s bridge infrastructure, particularly in the wake of the 2022 Morbi bridge tragedy that claimed as many as 135 lives.

After that incident, Gujarat high court took suo motu cognisance and initiated a public interest litigation (PIL), directing the state to submit a comprehensive report on bridge safety and accountability.

In compliance with earlier court directions—including those issued on October 10, 2023—an affidavit was filed by the deputy secretary of the urban development and urban housing department. The contents of that affidavit were recorded and reviewed by the Court in its oral order dated December 8, 2023.

According to the high court’s observations in that order, Gujarat has 1,441 major bridges (over 60 metres in length) under the roads and buildings department, each of which is supposed to be inspected twice a year—once before the monsoon and once after.

In addition, there are 348 bridges within municipal corporation limits and 113 within nagarpalika jurisdictions. Of these, 18 bridges in corporations and 5 in nagarpalikas require major repairs, while dozens more need minor work.

The Gujarat Congress released a list of 20 bridges in the state that have collapsed in the last one decade.