An overpass collapsed on Thursday in the Indian city of Kolkata, crushing vehicles below it, killing at least 17 people and leaving dozens more missing, authorities said.
Maj.
Gen. Anurag Gupta, from India's National Disaster Management Authority, said early Thursday evening that authorities didn't then know how
many people were driving across the bridge when it fell or how many more
remained trapped.
"We
cannot predict how many people are still under wreckage," Gupta said.
"We can't tell, since it's a bridge and not a building."
Local
officials at the scene said that in addition to those killed, more than
100 others suffered injuries in the midday collapse in a busy
commercial area north of Kolkata's center.
Sgt.
Saurav Benerjee of Kolkata police had said, at one point, that more
than 100 were unaccounted for -- though that only means their
whereabouts are unknown, not that that they're all necessarily trapped.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted that he was "shocked and saddened by (the) collapse of (the) under construction flyover."
"My thoughts and prayers are with the
families of those who lost their lives in Kolkata," Modi added. "May the
injured recover at the earliest."
At least 71 pulled from rubble:
India's
army has deployed four columns of rescue personnel, according to a
tweet from a representative of the Indian Ministry of Defense. Three
medical teams with two ambulances, doctors and nursing assistants are
also there.
And the National Disaster Response Force has five teams at the site, with two more on the way.
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