‘I knew they were dead…’: Survivors recall minutes after part of Gujarat bridge gave way

The woman is 46-year-old Sonalben Ramesh Padhiyar who was travelling in an Eeco car with eight other family members, including her two minor grandchildren, when tragedy struck.

Barring Sonalben, all the occupants of the vehicle, including her husband, son, daughter and son-in-law, besides her grandchildren, are feared dead in the accident.

At SSG hospital in Vadodara, where she was wheeled in with three other survivors, a distraught Sonalben recalls how the day started on a cheerful note for the family. They had set out on an outing to a place of worship to mark Guru Purnima.
“We had set out from Dariyapura to Bagdana (Saurashtra) for Guru Purnima pilgrimage around 7am. We could see a few motorcycles and a truck around us when, suddenly, the bridge collapsed. We just fell in a matter of seconds… Before we could even realise what happened, the vehicle had hit the water surface and was pulled into the river…”

By 7.30 pm, 11 people had been confirmed dead in the incident.

When asked about the video, Sonalben says, “I was calling out to people to help my family… I was the only one who managed to come out as I was in the rear of the vehicle. My husband, son, daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren as well as two other relatives were in the vehicle. It had fallen head first so there was no way they could have come out…”

Sonalben says it was about an hour after the accident that help arrived. “No one came to help me… My entire family remained in water for that time. I knew I had lost them, who would survive a car falling into Mahisagar? My grandson was the youngest, only two years old… It was after the police and other rescue team arrived with a boat that I came out. I don’t know where the rest of my family is…”

Another survivor pulled out from the river is Dilipsinh Padhiyar, a resident of Nani Sherdi village in Borsad taluka of Anand district. Dilipsinh was on a two-wheeler, returning from his night shift at a pharma company in Bharuch, when the accident occurred. “The traffic was moving as usual… I had barely covered 100 meters on the bridge when I felt a vibration and suddenly, the structure had given way. I found myself falling into the river,” says Dilipsinh.

“I had suffered injuries but somehow, I gathered my inner strength and held on to some metal rod, I don’t know what it was. I climbed up and tried to stay afloat until help arrived… The local fishermen were the first to arrive with boats,” he says.

Raju Doda Hathiya, a resident of Dwarka, who was driving a pick-up van to Ankleshwar, was among those who fell into the river as the vehicles plunged. Hathiya, who was rushed to the SSG hospital in Vadodara, says that the fall was “sudden”. Hathiya says, “There were two people in my vehicle… going from Dwarka to Ankleshwar. I am not sure where my helper is… The truck just fell into the water. I came out from my side and sat on the top of the vehicle… Later, someone came and pulled me out in a boat.”

Hathiya says that at the time the portion of the bridge collapsed, there were at least three big vehicles around him, apart from a couple of motorcycles.

‘Saw the bridge falling like a pack of cards’

For Anwar Mohammad, another survivor, it was the split-second decision to abandon his vehicle that saved his life.

A resident of Borsad, Anwar was on his way to Jambusar in Bharuch district for work along with two other persons in a van. “We were crossing the bridge when I heard the sound of a section falling apart. Immediately, the three of us jumped out of the van and ran… We saw the bridge falling like a pack of cards and our van plunging into the river… Had we managed to drive just a few metres ahead, the van would have also been safe.”

Two men from Kinkhlod, Mahesh Parmar and Vijay Parmar, say they skipped a heartbeat when they realised that the bridge was collapsing. “We had left our village for the day’s work on a motorcycle… When we came over the bridge, and it began to collapse, fear gripped us. But I managed to press the brakes in time and bring the motorcycle to a halt. We abandoned our two-wheeler and ran to save our lives. Later, as things settled, we slowly climbed back on to the bridge to see what had happened. Several vehicles had plunged into the river. It was a tragic and heart-breaking scene…”