Slab falls off of foot over bridge at Balharshah railway junction in Chandrapur; at least 20 injured

Several people feared being injured after slabs fell off of foot over a bridge at Balharshah railway junction in Maharashtra's Chandrapur on Sunday evening.

Earlier, the Central Railway PRO, Shivaji Sutar, informed, "Part of pre-cast slab of Foot over the bridge at Balharshah, Nagpur division fell down at around 5.10 pm today."

However, as per the recent report by Loksatta, at least 20 people have been injured in the incident and 8 people are in critical condition.

The Railway has announced Ex gratia Rs 1 lakh to grievously injured and Rs 50,000 to those who sustained simple injuries. "Injured persons being given best medical treatment by shifting them to other hospitals for early recovery," the CPRO CR Shivaji Sutar added.

Chandrapur Guardian Minister Sudhir Mungantiwar directed the hospital authorities to provide all necessary medical aid to the injured persons and ordered an investigation into the incident, the administration said.

The Central Railway (CR) said in a press release that a part of the pre-cast slab of the FOB connecting platform number 1 and 2 collapsed, but the other part of the bridge is intact.

The Balharpur railway station located is around 12 km away from Chandrapur district headquarters.

Recently, on October 30, in a bridge collapse, 135 people had died. Oreva Group, the contractor who was responsible for maintenance, operation, and security of the suspension bridge, had sold 3,165 tickets when the bridge collapsed, as mentioned by the government lawyer at a district court during the filing of a forensic report.