23 migrant workers from Bengal feared dead in Mizoram bridge collapse, 22 bodies found

All 26 people working at the site were from Malda district in West Bengal.

23 people are believed to be dead in the under-construction railway bridge collapse in Mizoram's Aizawl district, though 22 bodies have been recovered so far, officials said on Thursday.

A search is underway for one person who is still missing, they said, adding that the chance of his survival is bleak.

Among the three people injured, two were discharged after being provided first aid, while the other person was admitted to the Civil Hospital in Aizawl with a fracture in the right hand.

All the 26 people working there were from the Malda district of West Bengal.

The railways said the accident that took place on Wednesday was due to the collapse of a gantry, which was being launched on the under-construction bridge over the Kurung river.

A high-level committee has been constituted to probe the incident involving the under-construction bridge, one of the 130 bridges in the Bhairavi-Sairang new railway line project.

West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said that arrangements have been made to bring the bodies to the state.

State Congress president Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury met the families of the victims in Malda district, and assured them of help.

"Anywhere you go in this country, you will come across scores of migrant workers from Bengal, and a significant number of them are from Murshidabad and Malda districts. I understood this very well during the pandemic -- from Arunachal to Gujarat, these migrant workers reached out to me for returning home," he told reporters.

These people are forced to go out of the state for work as there are no employment opportunities in West Bengal, claimed Chowdhury, the MP of Baharampur in Murshidabad.

Criticising the TMC government, he said, 'Why can't the chief minister say that she will provide these people training, improve their skills and create jobs for them? I want to ask the chief minister, what is the number of migrant workers from the state? If you do not know this, it is your failure. The chief minister does not care about the migrant workers, that is why we do not have any data on them. The money they earn abroad runs the rural economy of the state. But, the state does not want to take any responsibility," he claimed.