Rescuers found the bodies of two people killed when an Indian highway overpass collapsed, crushing vehicles and injuring pedestrians sheltering from a rainstorm, an official said yesterday.
The collapse left the two dead and injured nine others, said C.V.S.K. Sharma, a senior municipal official in the southern city of Hyderabad.
Sharma said several vehicles were still buried under the rubble after the highway, which had been under construction, collapsed on Sunday night in Hyderabad, the capital of Andhra Pradesh state.
Rescue workers cleared away debris through the night and into yesterday in a search for victims who might have been pinned beneath the debris or inside the cars and three-wheeled taxis that were smashed when the steel girders fell.
On Sunday, police said up to 20 people were feared dead. But officials lowered the death toll dramatically the next day after some of the rubble was removed.
In Hyderabad, a city still recovering from twin bomb blasts on Aug. 25 that killed at least 43 people, Police Chief Balwinder Singh said the collapse appeared to have been caused by construction failure, not an act of sabotage.
"The indications are that structural problems had led to the mishap," Singh said.
Sharma said police have launched an inquiry to determine whether the contractor, Gamon India, was negligent in the construction of the overpass.
Officials at Gamon India could not be immediately reached for comment.
The overpass was being built to connect the city's wealthy Banjara Hills residential neighborhood with Panjagutta, a busy commercial area.
The incident occurred during a heavy rainfall. Traffic jams delayed ambulances and rescue equipment being rushed to the site from across the city.
"I am shocked and deeply grieved by the accident," Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in a statement carried by the Press Trust of India.
RSS