KARACHI, Sept 1: At least six people were killed and many others injured when the Shershah bridge, which formed part of the recently-inaugurated Northern Bypass, collapsed on Saturday afternoon. An unknown number of people remained trapped under the mangled mass of concrete and it is feared that the casualty figures will rise.

As the 70-metre Baldia loop buckled at about 1.20pm, two trailers and other vehicles that had been on the bridge were hurled about 25 feet on to the road below, near the crowded Shershah intersection.

At least two private cars, a donkey-cart, a minibus and a coach said to be packed with passengers were trapped – or crushed – under the masonry of the bridge which collapsed with an earth-shaking impact that led residents to believe that the city had been struck by a massive earthquake.

The Shershah senior police officer, Zahid Hussain, told Dawn that two cars trapped under the rubble were visible “but there are no signs of any passenger minibus or coach.”

He commented that the number of casualties would have been much higher had the incident taken place after 3pm when a large number of vehicles, including buses and minibuses, use the road from Habib Bank Bus Stop to Gul Bai.

“It is difficult to say yet how many people are trapped in the debris,” said DIG West Falak Khursheed. “Two trailers and a few cars came down with the bridge and fell on vehicles using the road below.”

One of the trailers, carrying bags of cement, was being driven by 45-year-old Mohammed Qasim who told Dawn that his survival was nothing short of a miracle. “The vehicle started to tip suddenly and fell over the side of the collapsing bridge,” he said while being treated at Civil Hospital Karachi. A samosa vendor added that the bridge collapsed with a deafening noise and “raised clouds of dust and debris that engulfed everything.”

Initial rescue operations were characterised by extreme tardiness, confusion and an evident lack of coordination. A couple of hours after the tragedy, engineers claiming to be from the National Highway Authority (NHA) appeared on the scene and started to dig a tunnel with excavators. The Karachi district coordination officer (DCO), Javed Hanif, who also reached the spot hours after the accident, asked the engineers under whose orders they were digging the tunnel. They explained to the DCO and the city nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal that since one of the girders of the collapsed section still appeared intact, they were trying to create an opening through which trapped people could be rescued. Subsequently, the top officials of the city government and the NHA engineers removed themselves into a nearby textile mill to discuss the matter further.

A police official told Dawn, meanwhile, that the machinery and heavy equipment being used in the rescue operations were insufficient for the purpose of moving the estimated 4,000 metric tonnes of the collapsed structure.

Through official records, the police have established the registered owners of two cars crushed under the fallen slabs. The metallic-red Toyota Corolla bearing the number plate AMA-795 is registered under the name of Khwaja Farrukh Karim, a resident of Block J, North Nazimabad.

The white Toyota Corolla with an AMK-417 number plate is registered under the name of Kharadar resident Rizwan Raza. However, officials told Dawn that the car may have been sold because soon after the accident, a young man from Mohajir Camp arrived at the scene having seen footage of the crushed car on television. “He said that his relatives had been travelling in the car and that it belonged to them,” said a police official.

However, Edhi sources said that a man named Rizwan was trapped in the white Corolla, and that he appeared to be alive. The Edhi helicopter hovering over the scene would take him to hospital as soon as he was freed from the wreckage, they added.

Yousaf Barakzai, the project director of the National Highways Authority (NHA), supervised the Northern Bypass project built by the National Logistics Cell (NLC). He told Dawn that one of the four supporting pillars inside the nearby textile mill had collapsed, causing one of the two girders of the bridge’s span to give way. “I cannot immediately say, however, what caused this recently-constructed structure to buckle in this manner,” he said.

A medico-legal officer at the CHK confirmed that two bodies and some mutilated body parts were brought to the hospital. “The dead are as yet unidentified,” he told Dawn, “but the injured include Yasir Ashfaq, 27, Nazakat, 20, Murad Bibi, 60 and Mohammed Qasim, 45.” He added that Mohammed Hanif, one of the Rangers’ personnel, was injured when, angered at being asked to move away, the crowd gathered at the scene of the accident hurled stones at law-enforcers.

At a press conference held later in the day, communications minister Shahim Siddiqui revealed that about a year ago, the ministry had found flaws in the bridge’s design and recommended reconstruction. However, the NLC hired foreign consultants and following their recommendations, put in steel sheets. “The contractor claimed that the bridge’s stability had been increased ten-fold,” said Mr Siddiqui.

Confirming the deaths of six people, the minister said that six to seven people in three vehicles remained trapped under the masonry. “City government staff are carrying out rescue work but it is impossible to lift some 4,000 metric tonnes of rubble with cranes,” he said. “Rescuers are in the process of making tunnels inside the wreckage.”

The minister promised that the families of those killed would receive Rs0.5 million in compensation and the government would bear all the expenses of the injured people’s treatment. The owners of the damaged vehicles would also be compensated.

According to Mr Siddiqui, who belongs to the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, an inquiry committee is being constituted comprising neutral experts, engineers, elected representatives, city government authorities and the town nazim concerned. It will submit a report within two weeks, he said, making it clear that action would be taken against the persons found responsible, be they from the NHA, the NLC or the consultant company. “I am ready to resign if there is any mistake on my part,” he said, adding that the bridge’s reconstruction may take up to six months but “the rest of the 57-kilometre long Northern Bypass is safe and can be used. The structural life of the construction, inaugurated two months ago by President General Pervez Musharraf, is 50 years.”

Additional reporting by Hasan Mansoor & Azfar-ul-Ashfaque