USA: Death toll expected to rise in Minneapolis bridge collapse

Rescuers are pulling more bodies from the swirling brown waters of the Mississippi River in what authorities said would be a slow and dangerous recovery operation, after the worst U.S. bridge collapse in more than 20 years. Four people are confirmed dead and as many as 30 are unaccounted for. Rescuers searched on Thursday (August 2) for as many as 30 people unaccounted for in a U.S. highway bridge collapse that sent vehicles tumbling into the Mississippi River in a deadly avalanche of concrete and steel, police said. The death toll from the collapse has been revised from nine to four with 60 people suffering injuries. The number of fatalities is expected to rise after rescue teams return to the bridge scene to search submerged vehicles for victims. "This is not a rescue operation any longer, its a recovery operation. This means we move more slowly and more deliberately," said Minneapolis Fire Chief Jim Clack. Federal investigators were on their way to probe the cause of the collapse. The Minneapolis bridge was among tens of thousands across the United States found "structurally deficient" but has passed recent inspections. Mark Rosenker, chairman of the National Transportation Safety Board said efforts were underway to try and understand what caused the bridge to collapse. "The first thing we must do is recover the pieces and after we recover these pieces of the bridge we will begin actually trying to reassemble them, not in a way where it's actually standing but kind of in a jig-saw puzzle way, flat, so we can look at the various parts of this bridge and understand what made it fall down," he said. As many as 60 vehicles were travelling on the 40-year-old steel-truss bridge when it buckled without warning during rush hour. Several workers who had been doing resurfacing work that closed some of the span's eight lanes were among those plunged into the river when the bridge fell some five stories into the river. Some of the injured were pulled from half-submerged vehicles and some swam to safety. Several motorists were critically injured, suffering broken bones, and head, neck and spinal injuries, a hospital emergency room physician said. A school bus carrying mostly children landed on its tires, and the 59 children and adults on board scrambled out the back exit, bloodied and bruised. Investigators are looking at whether bridge construction played any role, but Minneapolis Mayor R.T. Rybak said it was too early to pinpoint a cause.

ITN Source | August 3, 2007

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