32 killed as bridge falls on train in India

NEW DELHI—A colonial-era footbridge collapsed onto railroad tracks in eastern India on Saturday, burying a train beneath tons of red rock and killing at least 32 passengers.
Rescuers struggled for hours to remove the pile of concrete, slabs of red stone and debris from the mangled sleeper car. By nightfall, they reached the crushed section and discovered that the car — believed to have been largely empty — was full of bodies.
Thirty-two bodies had been recovered by Saturday night, including those of five children, said Ajay Verma, deputy inspector general of police for railways. Fourteen people were pulled out alive and four of the wounded were in a serious condition.
The 150-year-old arched footbridge at the Bhagalpur station, in the eastern state of Bihar, had been in the process of being dismantled, said Viplav Kumar, a local government administrator at the scene. Bhagalpur is about 93 miles east of Patna, the capital of Bihar.
Two of the three arched spans had already been removed, but the third came crashing down in a cloud of dust. “A loud roar and the heavens seemed to have crumbled over us,” passenger Anil Yadav, told the Press Trust of India news agency.—Agencies