Saturday, December 26, 2009 KOTA: The number of people presumed killed when a bridge collapsed in western India rose to at least 45 on Saturday, an official said, as rescue divers struggled to recover bodies pinned under water. "At least 45 people are presumed to have died in the bridge collapse," senior police official Rajeev Dasot told foreign news agency, raising the estimated death toll from 17. Dozens of labourers plunged into the water late Thursday when the bridge on which they were working gave way over the Chambal River on the outskirts of the city of Kota in Rajasthan state. The bridge was being jointly built by South Korea's Hyundai Engineering and Gammon India. Two senior project managers, including a South Korean national, have been arrested on accusations of culpable homicide, Dasot said.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
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