Nine people were arrested Monday in connection with the collapse of a pedestrian bridge in western India that killed at least 137 people, police said.
The nine, all associated with a company that maintained the bridge in Morbi,were being investigated for culpable homicide not amounting to murder, senior police officer Ashok Kumar Yadav said in a statement.
The bridge, which had reopened days earlier after months of renovation, collapsed on Sunday evening, sending hundreds tumbling into the river in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home state of Gujarat.
Authorities said nearly 500 people were celebrating the last day of the Diwali festival on and around the nearly 150-year-old suspension bridge when supporting cables snapped.
CCTV footage showed the structure swaying, with a few people apparently deliberately rocking it, before it suddenly gave way.
The walkway and one fence crashed into the Machchhu river, leaving the other side dangling in mid-air as people fell into the water in the dark.
Local police chief P. Dekavadiya said that by Monday afternoon the death toll had risen to 137. They included around 50 children, the youngest being a two-year-old boy.
