The New Nation - Internet Edition

AFP, Kathmandu

At least 15 people died and hundreds on a religious pilgrimage were missing after an overcrowded bridge collapsed in western Nepal on Tuesday, police and officials said.

Nearly 400 people were said to have been on the bridge across a gorge over the Bheri River, 380 kilometres (240 miles) west of the capital Kathmandu, when it collapsed, district officials and police said.

"So far 14 bodies have been recovered on the river banks and one succumbed to injuries while being rushed to hospital," police officer Mithe Thapa Chettri told AFP by phone.

"We expect the death toll to rise," Chettri said.

Local police said 35 injured, most of them women and children, had been airlifted by helicopter to the district headquarters at Birendranagar as rescue teams raced to the remote area as night fell.

"Hundreds of people went missing and we fear dozens might have drowned," local officer Ghanashyam Chaudhary told AFP by telephone, adding that many may have been swept downstream into remote areas of the mainly agricultural countryside that surrounds the Bheri, one of Nepal's largest rivers.

But as many as 100 people reportedly managed to swim to safety with the Bheri River at low winter season flow, Chaudhary said, but rescue teams including the army were battling cold and rugged terrain around the river.

Chief district officer Anil Kumar Pandey, who was at the site, told AFP that two helicopters had arrived to help scour the river and evacuate injured people after the bridge, made of metal and steel coils and estimated at 500 metres (1,650 feet) across, collapsed.

He said the initial cause of the collapse may have been a catastrophic failure of one of the pillars that supported the bridge, that stood some 50 metres above the water level.

He also said more than 100 army and police officials had been called to help.

"The rescue work has been halted for today as darkness has gripped the area. Police and army have set up temporary camps to begin rescue works from early Wednesday morning," Pandey said.

The bridge was crowded because local residents were heading to a religious ceremony to celebrate the full moon that began Monday, he said.

"The remoteness of the area and poor communication facilities has delayed rescue efforts," he said.

Nepal has hundreds of small bridges in the countryside that range from rope or wooden planks to steel and concrete.

The landlocked Himalayan nation is cut by dozens of rivers across one of the steepest topographies in the world.