Two people were killed and four others were wounded,one of them critically, when a walkway hanging bridge collapsed tossing them into the swallow stream, which is covered with big boulders in West Bengal’s Kalimpong district, police investigating the mishap said today.
The mishap happened on Sunday evening at Papritang as the victims were brought to the Kalimpong district hospital at around 2100 hours where Tek Bahadur Subba (52) and Aitraj Raj Rai (23) were declared brought dead. Among the injured Nawang Subba was taken to the Siliguri hospital after his condition deteriorated.
The collapse happened when they were crossing the fragile bridge,which went almost upside down after tearing off ropes to a side, eye witnesses said.
The walkway bridges are common in the Himalayan terrains where these connect the people between the villages, separated with streams coming from the upper region of mountains.
However, these traditional handing bridges, made of woods, wires and ropes, are susceptible to collapse under weight or heavy rains and storms due to poor maintenance, said an aged villager. He said due to poor maintenance by the local authorities, the villagers of their own keep walkway bridges in order to have connectivity or face disconnected from the world.
