IVRCL, the company that was building the Vivekananda flyover in Kolkata, on Friday replaced its “hand of god” line on the Kolkata bridge collapse with “mere accident”.
Addressing a media conference, representatives of the company said in Hyderabad that incident was a “mere accident” and that the company was in shock.
On Thursday, 100-metre stretch of the Vivekananda Road flyover connecting Girish Park to Howrah Bridge collapsed, killing over 20 people and injuring over 70.
Legal head for the company Sita said “This is merely an accident, we will cooperate with the investigation. We are also shocked that the flyover collapsed, we are also anxious to know why it happened.”
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On Thursday evening, K Panduranga Rao, Group Head (HR & Admin) had told reporters: "It's nothing but a God's act. So far in 27 years we have constructed several number of bridges...it (today's collapse) never happened,"
On Friday, officials said that they said that they had taken all approvals for the construction, and that they had used the same “good quality” material for 59 pillars and that they did not know why the 60th pillar collapsed, bringing down a section of the bridge.
Answering questions on the nine missed deadlines, Sita said the company alone could not be blamed for delays as the government did not provide clearances on time.
Quoting media reports, she went further to say that there was a noise like a bomb explosion, and that there was a lot of glass on the accident site.
“We don’t know what happened.” She said, adding that the company would cooperate with the police investigation.