Mahi tragedy: Anger mounts in Narsinhpura as search for missing youth continues

Vadodara: Growing frustration is turning into anger at Narsinhpura village, adjacent to Mujpur village in Vadodara's Padra taluka, where search operations continue to trace a youth still missing in the Gambhira bridge collapse tragedy.On Sunday, the fifth day since the bridge collapse that claimed 20 lives, several villagers from Narsinhpura gathered at the accident site along the Mahi river, demanding that authorities expedite efforts to recover the body of 22-year-old Vikram Ramesh Padhiyar."Today, it seemed as if the search operations had slowed down. Apart from the team working to dismantle the main slab of the submerged bridge, no other activity was visible," said Harshadsinh Parmar, a Vadodara district panchayat member and resident of Mujpur, who had earlier raised concerns about the bridge's deteriorating condition in Aug 2022."All we're asking is for the authorities to speed up the process. Vikram's family hasn't eaten since the tragedy. With the technology available today, there must be some way to locate and recover the body," he added.Former Padra MLA Jaspalsinh Padhiyar echoed the demand along with Vikram's father, Ramesh Padhiyar, who is camping at the accident spot waiting for his son's body.Vadodara district collector Anil Dhameliya told TOI that the administration's focus since day one has been to recover bodies from the accident site. "Our technical team is working continuously to remove the collapsed slab of the bridge and trace the missing individual," he said.Initial efforts to lift the main bridge slab using two pulleys, each with a capacity of 300 tonnes, failed to dislodge it. Following this, technical teams began cutting the concrete using a 20-horsepower diamond wire cutting machine to gain access to the remaining debris.Simultaneously, search teams have been deployed both upstream and downstream of the Mahi river using rubber boats. "Due to the tidal nature of the Mahi, the water current shifts directions. During high tide, it flows towards the Wahara creek, while during low tide it moves downstream towards the sea. Therefore, we are conducting searches in both directions," an official explained.