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fudgy_brownies t1_iue1go1 wrote

70 dead and around 100 still trapped in the water. There's no electricity in the area which is making rescue operations difficult (it's night in India). A clearer picture will probably emerge in the morning.

The bridge was hurriedly renovated and re-opened 4 days ago without proper checks/fitness certificate because elections are coming up.

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doofleton t1_iuefvsd wrote

A few years ago when a flyover collapsed in another poll bound state in India, killing several people, our current Prime Minister said, to applause, it was "a message from God" not to vote for his rivals in their govt.Today it is his own party that was in power when this bridge collapsed and their supporters here will.tell you "not to politicise" the incident. Only they are allowed to politicise the deaths of citizens.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/kolkata-flyover-collapse-was-god-s-message-says-indian-prime-minister-a6974026.htm

https://www.thehindu.com/elections/westbengal2016/kolkata-flyover-collapse-is-gods-message-says-narendra-modi/article8447683.ece

Watch him say it here https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NWRyEy1jzWE

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kekentyl t1_iuf3bnl wrote

I guess that's a pretty universal phenomenon, huh.

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adamjm t1_iugxzjg wrote

They really work hard to keep their country miserable over there. Group effort.

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Ameisen t1_iuiqrkt wrote

They also corrupt schools. There is an entire Hindu Nationalist movement in history and linguistics, pushing that Indo-Europeans came from India, and that Sanskrit is the root language.

Despite the massive amounts of evidence and research to the contrary, if you disagree with them they just call you racist.

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Important-Owl1661 t1_iufe3fi wrote

I'm not defending the colonial era but I have to say they built good shit back in the day... most of those British Railways are still being patched together, too

These days it looks like India is suffering from the same privatizing/profitizing that the US and others are suffering from.

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Arndt3002 t1_iufhfzv wrote

Are you implying that the entire British empire wasn't a system of privatization and profiting? That's a wild take.

The problem is corruption and, in this case, politics coming before safety.

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Kronis1 t1_iufs98h wrote

The problem is unchecked capitalism.

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gritty_badger t1_iugr2b9 wrote

There are bridges that don't even exist in the real world in the communist states in India.

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Eric1491625 t1_iugtnfk wrote

>I'm not defending the colonial era but I have to say they built good shit back in the day... most of those British Railways are still being patched together, too

Imagine thinking the stuff in the colonial era was safe and good. 19th century construction was so extremely dangerous that even people in Britain were dying by the thousands to crappy safety designs.

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hopumi t1_iugv40v wrote

Meanwhile the Pyramids...

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Ameisen t1_iuir009 wrote

Are giant piles of rock. I mean, it's hard for those to fail.

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