Morbi Bridge Tragedy: Four Employees of Oreva Group Arrested, More than 100 Bodies are still Feared Trapped in Muddy Waters

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Oct 31: Nearly 100 bodies are still feared trapped in the muddy waters of river Machchhu when the search and rescue operations were suspended for the day with the sundown on Monday evening after the Morbi cable bridge collapse tragedy that has left 143 dead and more than 100 others injured, many of them critically.

The police said four employees of the Oreva Group, which had carried out the repair of the century and half-old bridge and re-opened it for public barely four days before the tragedy struck, have been arrested and an FIR filed against the company which largely deal in manufacturing wold-class clocks.

Sources said the arrested were mainly mid-level employees of Oreva, which has been accused of violating multiple safety rules, leading to the huge tragedy. The company’s senior officials have been missing since the bridge tragedy, one of the worst the country has seen.

The 1.5 metre wide footbridge is believed to have collapsed on Sunday evening when over 400-odd devotees were performing “Chhath puja” mainly due to overcrowding.

Forensics officers used gas cutters to collect samples of the structure and found that the huge rush of people overloaded and weakened the structural integrity of the just-renovated cable bridge, sources said.

The bridge has the capacity to withstand weight of some 125 people but the company had issued tickets to over 400 people at a time to perform the “Chhath puja.” Most of the victims in the tragedy were women and children. A Oreva Group spokesperson has claimed that the bridge collapsed as “too many people in the mid-section of the bridge were trying to sway it from one way to the other.”

A 15-year contract between the Morbi municipal body and Ajanta Manufacturing Pvt Ltd, which is a part of Oreva group, allows Oreva to maintain the bridge and collect payment in the form of tickets, up to ₹ 17 per person. But the watchmaker reportedly outsourced the “technical aspect of the renovation” to a smaller construction company, Devprakash Solutions. Footage from just before the collapse showed a group of people taking photos while others tried to sway the bridge before they tumbled into the river as the metal cables gave way.

The Oreva Group had claimed that the repairs, which they did “with modified technical specifications”, would hold up for at least another eight to ten years and people can enjoy “a carefree adventure”. “No doubt about that,” the Managing Director of the Oreva group had said during a press conference on October 24, just two days before the official reopening of the bridge following seven months of renovation.

“If people act responsibly without damaging the property, this renovation can sustain for the next 15 years,” he said, adding that “100 per cent” renovation of the bridge was done in just ₹ 2 crore. “As we know, the bridge was made during a time when there was not much technical innovation, and only wooden planks and beams were used to make the bridge initially,” Managing Director Jaysukhbhai Patel said in Gujarati in response to questions by local reporters, adding that they had sent the requirements to companies (like Jindal) and according to the requirements and technical specifications got the raw materials.

Mr Patel had further explained that they would charge an entry fee to limit entry and manage crowds. “We also don’t want to overwhelm the sturdiness of the bridge,” he said. “For students and for those coming in big groups, we’ll be giving them discounts, with the support of the Collector and the President of the Morbi Municipal Corporation, I don’t remember the exact agreement, but we’ll be revising the entry fees by one-two rupee every year for the next 7 years,” he said.

Though the private company had publicly announced the re-opening of the bridge two days before it actually was opened for public, the Morbi municipal body chief Sandeepsinh Zala maintained that the Oreva did not inform the authorities about reopening the bridge and the company had not been issued a fitness certificate to do so.

Official sources said Oreva had subcontracted part of the renovation project to ‘Prakash bhai’, part of a company called Dev Prakash Solutions, as they had handled part of the repairs post-earthquake in 2007, Mr Patel said in the press conference.

Mr Patel said his company would handle the operation, and maintenance, while the lighting was assigned to an Ahmedabad based company, “which will start the night light set up shortly.” The company had planned to keep the bridge open to public till 6-6:30 pm initially would extend the timing till later in the night for evening strolls once the lighting work was done. “We might open it in the night for around 2 hours,” he said, citing public demand.