At least 26 workers were killed on Wednesday after the collapse of a bridge that was under construction in the northeastern Indian state of Mizoram, officials said.
Several other workers were feared trapped under the wreckage, the Indian news media reported. Sabyasachi De, a spokesman for the North East Frontier Railway, said that Mizoram State had taken over a rescue operation and that the construction was a project of the federal railways ministry.
“Most northeastern state capitals are not connected by the railways, so this bridge was part of that connectivity project,” he said.
Mr. De said that a gantry, rather than the entire bridge, fell while being set atop the bridge’s piers. A committee has been formed to investigate the cause of the collapse, he added.
Videos from the scene showed the crumbled portion of the bridge resting in the dirt of the construction site in a lush mountainous area.
India’s infrastructure has long been marred by safety problems and allegations of corruption, with hundreds of people killed in the past decade in bridge disasters alone.
Last fall, at least 134 people died when a pedestrian bridge collapsed in the state of Gujarat. The bridge had been reopened without proper refurbishment and safety checks.