Family outing turns to misery with India bridge collapse

MORBI, India: Single father Mahesh spent every night of his final weeks cruising the streets of Morbi on his new scooter.

Paid for by years of backbreaking factory work, it was a tangible symbol of his Indian household´s upward mobility. Now their future lies in ruins. On his last joyride Mahesh took his young son and nephew to the town´s main tourist attraction, a newly renovated suspension bridge where hundreds had gathered on Sunday evening for the last day of the annual Diwali holiday.

By the following morning, the trio´s bodies had been pulled from a river and identified by distraught family, after India´s worst bridge collapse in decades. “It was so quick and sudden that I feel like it´s just a dream,” Jagdish, the elder brother of Mahesh, told AFP.

“We are numb. The house looks empty even though there are so many visitors.” The two brothers lived together with their children. As well as the two boys, they have four daughters between them -- and extended family. They eked out a modest living, earning around $120 a month as labourers in a ceramics factory.