With three columns of around 300 soldiers and engineers and three medical teams, the Indian Army is battling it out in Kolkata rescuing people believed to be in the hundreds trapped under a collapsed flyover. The death toll so far is 18 with nearly 80 injured.


The Army along with the 10 teams from the NDRF brought with them crucial equipment, including drilling machines, gas cutters, seven water tankers and state-of-the art sensors. They are using heavy duty cranes supplied by the Delhi metro.


When the Army moved in, locals and firefighters, who till then had been struggling to remove huge chunks of concrete with their bare hands to pull out the injured, broke into a spontaneous applause, reports NDTV.


The men had been at work since the Vivekananda Setu, located in the middle of a busy commercial area in Central Kolkata, collapsed around 12.30 pm, trapping pedestrians and a number of light and heavy vehicles.

The operation, an army spokesman said, could last all night.


Pic: A rescue team carries a dead body from the rubble of the collapsed flyover