70 labourers injured in bridge collapse in Assam

Seventy labourers were injured, 27 of them seriously, when a portion of an under-construction concrete bridge collapsed in Upper Assam's Dhemaji district, officials said on Saturday.

A section of the Bogibeel road-cum-rail bridge at Karenchapari Mechaki collapsed after a heavy vehicle was trying to cross when labourers were repairing it on Friday.

The 27 critically injured were undergoing treatment at the Dhemaji civil hospital, while the rest with minor injuries admitted to the hospital and the Silapathar public health centre, were released today, they said.

In the wake of the incident, the influential local ethnic organisation Takam Mising Porin Kebang (TMPK), which has also been spearheading the anti-dam protest in Assam, has called an indefinite Bogibeel project bandh from today.