Three bodies found, death toll now 27

TNN | Apr 3, 2016, Kolkata: Horrors of the Vivekananda Road flyover disaster continue. Over Saturday afternoon and evening, more than 48 hours after the tragedy, three more bodies were extracted from under the rubble, taking the toll to 27. 

To manage the crowds that continued to stream in for a glimpse of the grotesque and hamper salvage operations, the state administration put up a curtain to block the view, a take from last year's Durga Puja, when a giant Durga idol at Deshapriya Park had been similarly covered to stop the convergence of crowds. However, Rahul Gandhi's visit to the spot hours earlier prompted some to wonder if the blinds were hurriedly planned to prevent political opponents from a stop-over at the site en route to election campaigns. Narendra Modi and Sonia Gandhi are also due for rallies in the state.

By the time Rahul made the five-minute stop at the Rabindra Sarani-Kalikrishna Tagore Street intersection to look at the crash scene, salvage operations had wound up in the belief that the last victim's body had been extracted from a mangled truck stuck under a 300-tonne steel girder earlier in the night.

A team of engineers were on their way to plan the demolition of two decks of the flyover that continue to hang precariously on KK Tagore Street. It is under the edge of an adjoining deck that the bodies lay, smashed and buried. Two bodies were carted out around 1pm and another a couple of hours later. DNA tests will be carried out for three unidentified bodies.

The discovery of decomposed bodies nearly a day after salvage agencies had ruled out any more dead bodies except the one caught in the truck acted as a catalyst, igniting the simmering anger that had been brewing in the locality since Thursday. About 100 local youths carried out a demonstration carrying placards and shouting slogans demanding the demolition of the entire flyover.

"We don't want the cursed flyover. It has destroyed the very fabric of area and violated the sanctity of the locality," said Satish Agarwal, a trader who resides in the neighbourhood, referring to the Kali, Shani and Hanuman temple at the south-eastern edge of KK Tagore Street on which one ramp of the flyover had collapsed. Agarwal fears the temple priest could be still be lying under the mangled steel and concrete. There are five more temples in a 50-metre stretch.

Efforts are on to remove two precariously hanging decks by Sunday so that life can resume in the area, the city's biggest trading hub, on Monday after a four-day paralysis. On Saturday evening, police installed the view-cutter and declared the area a no-selfie zone before allowing north-bound traffic to ply on Chitpur Road.