Nagpur, Aug. 4: Sampada Vaze, 35, was returning to Mumbai with her husband and five relatives in a Tavera that plunged into the river Savitri after a British-era bridge collapsed 170km south of Mumbai late on Tuesday night.

Sampada's body and that of a relative, Shewanti Mirgal, 70, were fished out today while the other passengers and the driver remain untraced along with the vehicle.

Local television channels said that Sampada's ailing father - she was returning after visiting him in their native village in Ratnagiri district - died after hearing the news.

Two buses carrying 22 people and an estimated eight other vehicles were washed away when the 88-year-old bridge collapsed at Mahad in Raigad.

Just seven bodies were recovered today after searchers had drawn a blank yesterday, while none of the vehicles has been found.

One of the seven was Shrikant Kamble, 55, driver of a Jaigarh-Mumbai state bus. His son Mahendra, 18, who had just cleared his Class XII exams with good marks and was on the bus, is missing.

His mother told a regional news channel this afternoon that Mahendra was travelling to Mumbai to get admitted to an engineering college.

Shrikant's body was among the first to be traced and identified this morning along the seashore in Anjarle, south of Harihareshwar town, where the river meets the Arabian Sea. All seven bodies were found in this area, 4-5km downstream from the collapsed bridge.

Avinash Malap, around 38, is among those missing and feared dead, although his family is hoping for a miracle.

Avinash was returning to Mumbai after dropping his mother at their village in Ratnagiri. The last time he spoke to his wife was around 9.30pm on Tuesday.

The search was halted at dusk today and will resume early tomorrow morning.

"The river current is still very strong," National Disaster Response Force commandant Anupam Srivastav, who is overseeing the search, said from Mahad over the phone this evening. "The water is still about 35 feet deep and it's still raining."

Search teams have deployed a 300kg magnet and anchors to search for the vehicles. As the teams lowered the magnet into the river today, it stuck to a metal object raising hopes of finding at least one of the vehicles.

The object later turned out to be a pipeline that runs across the riverbed to supply drinking water to nearby villages.

While the searchers are scouring the river, coast guard and navy teams are scanning the Konkan coastline.

Srivastav said the water flow was likely to ebb by tomorrow morning as the rain was likely to abate. "We are hoping to trace the vehicles tomorrow."

Maharashtra's state road transport corporation confirmed that the Jaigarh-Mumbai bus had 11 passengers at the time of the accident while the Rajapur-Boriwali bus was carrying seven. Each bus had a driver and a conductor.

Chief minister Devendra Fadnavis has ordered a judicial inquiry and said the officials who had issued a safety certificate to the bridge during an inspection in May will be punished.

The state government has announced a compensation of Rs 5 lakh for the family of each dead.

An editorial in Shiv Sena mouthpiece Saamana asked how the authorities had given the all-clear certificate to the bridge three months ago.