Union Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu Kinjarapu has said that a structural preliminary inspection would be done at all the airports across the country. He further said that the ministry sought a report from all the airports within 2-5 days, upon which required necessary measures would to be taken to prevent such collapse incidents in the future.

“Incident that happened at the Delhi airport is very tragic and I offer my condolences to the one individual who lost his life. Some people were injured also in the incident, they have been taken to the hospital and their treatment is underway,” Naidu said while speaking to ANI.

“We have taken control of the situation. Terminal-1 is completely closed and evacuated. All the flight movements have been shifted to Terminal 2 and Terminal 3. For those people whose flights have been canceled, they are being given either a refund or an alternate flight. The Civil Aviation Ministry has decided to pass a circular to provide refunds to the people within seven days,” he further said.

“To ensure this happens, we have set up war rooms at Terminal 2 and Terminal 3. The Ministry has released a statement regarding this which has all the numbers. We are taking care of it and have placed one of the officers in the war rooms,” he added.

“We don’t want a similar incident to happen again, so we have brought in a special team from IIT Delhi’s structural department. They will provide an initial inspection report, based on that necessary action will be taken…to ensure that we are getting a structural preliminary inspection done at all airports, we have sought a report from all the airports across the country within 2-5 days,” the Minister said.

His remarks came in the wake of the Delhi Airport canopy collapse incident, which claimed the life of a 45-year-old cab driver and left eight others injured.

Naidu also slammed the opposition Congress for doing ‘petty politics and spreading fake news’ over the tragic incident.

“I am a little surprised that the opposition wants to do politics on this kind of issue by saying this is a terminal inaugurated by PM Modi but it is fake news they are spreading. PM Modi inaugurated a building in another terminal and it is intact. The roof of the building that collapsed is an old building inaugurated in 2009. It is a 15-year-old building…using this situation to take a dig at the govt is not a good precedent,” he said.