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MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota: Divers resumed sifting the
mangled wreckage Thursday of a highway bridge that collapsed in rush
hour plunging vehicles into the Mississippi River, killing several
people.
Officials put the latest toll at
seven. Some local media said at least nine people were killed in the
wreck, while other reports early Thursday citing police revised the
toll down to four.
“There’s no question the
fatality number will go up,” Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty told
NBC, as recovery workers at the site of the wreckage resumed their
search in daylight.
“We know there are a number of
cars in the water we haven’t been able to get to and they’ve
been there submerged since last evening . . . so the fatality number
is likely to go up.”
Officials said 20 to 30 people
were still reported missing after the search was halted for the
night at 1 a.m. and recovery teams could see at least 50 vehicles
submerged, television reports said.
Dozens of vehicles fell into the
river or were crushed as massive sections of the eight-lane bridge
on a major highway, rising 64 feet (20 meters) over the water, were
sheared off during Wednesday evening rush hour in Minneapolis,
Minnesota.
“The bridge started falling,
cars were flying everywhere and I saw the water coming up,” said
Catherine Yankelevich, who was driving across the bridge when it
fell.
Her car ended up in the water but
she managed to roll down her window and swim to safety.
After four hours of frantic
rescue efforts before nightfall, the head of the fire department
said the focus on Thursday would shift from search to recovery.
Jim Clack said more than 60
people were taken to hospital and it was unlikely that any more
survivors would be found.
“We have moved from a rescue
mode . . . to a recovery mode,” he said.
In Washington, Department of
Homeland Security officials said there was no sign that the
bridge’s collapse was the result of terrorism.
“This is a catastrophe of
historic proportions for Minnesota,” said Minnesota Governor Tim
Pawlenty.
The governor said the 40-year-old
steel arch bridge was last inspected in 2006 and no structural
problems were found.
There was, however, work-taking
place on the bridge “relating to concrete repair and
rehabilitation and replacement, guard rail replacement, righting
replacement and work on the joints,” he said.
A 2001 report by the state
transport department concluded that the bridge “should not have
any problems with fatigue cracking in the foreseeable future” and
recommended not to replace the bridge “prematurely.”
But it also pointed to problems
with corrosion in the bridge’s steel beams, “poor welding”,
and said it was designed under 1961 regulations that have since been
rewritten with stricter rules.
The American Society of Civil
Engineers has warned of corroding bridges and other US
infrastructure, saying in a 2003 report that 27 percent of US
bridges were structurally deficient or “functionally obsolete”
due to outdated designs.
It was a disastrous scene at the
bridge site as injured people crouched among the smoke on crumpled
concrete, with steel girders submerged in the brown river.
Rescue workers tied with yellow
rope waded through the water and used boats to reach people stranded
in the middle of the river.
--AFP
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