Authorities said they uncovered more bodies yesterday from the
wreckage of a US highway bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi
River during Wednesday evening's rush hour. So far four people were
confirmed dead, 79 were injured and more than 20 people were
missing.
The Interstate 35W bridge collapsed at about 6:05 PM local time
(23:05 GMT) during Wednesday's rush hour, plunging cars into the
river.
Security camera video showed the bridge's center section
collapsing into the river in less than four seconds. The northern
end of the span appeared to drop first and the southern end
followed.
Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan said he would not be more
specific about the toll on the Interstate 35W bridge. The death
toll was almost certain to climb as recovery work continued.
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.
At present, rescuers are continuing their search in the
Mississippi River below the bridge among the submerged cars and
twisted steel left by the collapse. Their hopes of finding
survivors have dimmed.
City fire chief Jim Clack said that emergency work was no longer
a rescue operation and had become a recovery operation.
In Washington, US President George W. Bush offered his
condolences to victims of the collapse and promised that the
federal government would help ensure that the bridge will be
rebuilt as quickly as possible.
"We in the federal government must respond, and respond
robustly, to help the people there not only recover, but to make
sure that lifeline of activity -- that bridge -- gets rebuilt as
quickly as possible," Bush told a press conference at the Rose
Garden of the White House.
White House spokesman Tony Snow said an inspection two years ago
had found structural deficiencies in the bridge, but "this doesn't
mean there was a risk of failure."
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He said First lady Laura Bush will visit Minneapolis today.
Snow said the Minnesota state has not made a formal request for
Bush to issue a disaster declaration, but people are being sent to
the scene from a number of federal agencies, including the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, the Environment Protection Agency and
the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Transportation
Security Board.
In addition, he said the federal government will give local
officials US$5 million to re-route traffic and remove debris.
Meanwhile, Bush sent Transportation Department Secretary Mary
Peters to the scene.
"We will take every step possible to make sure something like
this will never happen again," Peters told a news conference in
Minneapolis of local and federal officials.
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said in network television
interviews the bridge had passed inspections, although it was among
thousands of bridges across the country deemed to be "structurally
deficient" in a federal government report.
Federal investigators were on their way to probe the cause.
Rybak said it was too early to pinpoint a cause.
(China Daily via agencies, Xinhua News
Agency?August 3, 2007)
