Indian Navy divers have located and recovered one more wreckage of a Tavera SUV during their operations to retrieve the buses and bodies of victims from the Mahad bridge collapse. There were two bodies in the vehicle.
The vehicle number is MH04 GD 7837. The wreckage was found 300 meters from the damaged bridge, in 4-5 meters deep in the Savitri river. The wreckage was extractable and extraction was jointly done by Navy divers and NDRF on Sunday afternoon.
Naval divers had on Saturday located wreckage of the second MSRTC bus on Saturday which was washed away in the turbulent Savitri river near Mahad in Raigad district after a British-era bridge collapsed on August 2. The wreckage is 400 meters from the bridge in an area where strong currents are observed. The wreckage is completely submerged in around 5 meters depth.
On Thursday, wreckage of Rajapur-Borivali MSRTC bus was retrieved approximately 170 and 200 meters from the collapsed bridge. After the Navy divers located the bus, braving strong currents and crocodiles in the river, NDRF teams were summoned to retrieve it.
The Indian Navy team comprising personnel specialising in diving was searching for the wreckage and survivors since the morning of August 4, braving high water current and crocodile hotbeds in the river.
So far, 26 bodies have been recovered and nearly 14 are still missing and feared dead after two State Transport buses and some other vehicles fell in the swollen river following the bridge collapse on Mumbai-Goa Highway near Mahad in Raigad district, about 170 kms from here.
The bridge was to be dismantled last December as part of the Mumbai-Goa Highway expansion project.
Meanwhile, anxious kin of the deceased who were camping at the rescue site have left the place.