Efforts are on to fish out the three bodies, he said.
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“Whenever our team gets the bodies out from the river, they are sent to local hospital for postmortem and then we hand over them to the kin after following the laid down procedures”, Patil said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke to Fadnavis and was briefed about the bridge collapse.”The PM offered all help in rescue and relief operations”, Fadnavis said.
The local police were providing all logistical and technical support to the jawans in the search, he said.
Fadnavis, who is monitoring the situation, said, “There were two parallel bridges; one is a new bridge and one constructed during the British era”.
He said the search operation will continue till the remains of buses and other four-wheelers are found.
Not only Mahabaleswar, most parts of Konkan & Goa region have been witnessing vigorous Monsoon conditions, giving heavy to extremely heavy rains for the last couple of days.
“The primary reason seems to be the high pressure caused due to flooding of river Savitri due to heavy rains in catchment of Mahabaleshwar, he said”.
Darkness had hampered operations, which resumed this morning. The single-lane bridge was built in British-era colonial times.
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis on Thursday announced a judicial probe into the incident in the Legislative Assembly.
He said the government has chose to give Rs 5 lakh to kin of the deceased in the tragedy. Two Mumbai-bound buses are among the dozen or so vehicles that are believed to have fallen into the flooded river.
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The bridge, more than seven decades old and a critical link to the Mumbai-Goa national highway, crashed around 1 a.m. due to the flood waters rushing into the river.
