Fatalities after Miami footbridge collapses
MIAMI, Florida — A newly installed pedestrian bridge over a major road in Miami collapsed on Thursday, killing six people and trapping multiple cars below.
The walkway, which connected Florida International University to a student housing area, went up less than a week ago but was not yet operational.
Miami-Dade Police said they can’t yet release any information about the victims, adding that 10 people were initially hospitalized.
Crews worked into the night at the scene of the disaster. Maurice Kemp, the area’s deputy mayor, said the search for survivors had not been abandoned.
“Miami-Dade county and our partner agencies ... have been working feverishly in the search and rescue mode to ascertain how many victims there are and rescue as many as we can,” Kemp told journalists.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Division Chief Paul Estopinan said at least eight cars were trapped when the 950ton concrete bridge suddenly gave way.
Police detective Juan Carlos Llera said: “It sounded like an explosion. A huge bang. It looks like a disaster area. It looks literally like a bomb went off.”
The bridge was suspended from cables that were determined to have loosened. While they were being tightened, the span collapsed, Florida Senator Marco Rubio wrote on Twitter.
The bridge was installed on Saturday, ahead if its planned opening in 2019.
Isabella Carrasco, who said she arrived on the scene just after the collapse, told CNN that some cars were completely crushed, and there was “just a lot of debris everywhere”.
She said she saw one woman get out of a car that was “just nicked” and rescue personnel performing lifesaving CPR on another person.
Another shaken driver, Lynnell Collins, told CNN he was about to make a right turn when “the whole thing really just came down”.
’Freaking out’
Another shaken driver, Lynnell Collins, told CNN he was about to make a right turn when “the whole thing really just came down”.
“I was freaking out. I got out of my car and me and a few other people were sprinting over there,” he said.
“We started helping people whose cars were at least half crushed and whoever was easily saved.”
He added that he saw two trucks that were “completely crushed”.
“We are shocked and saddened about the tragic events unfolding at the FIUSweetwater pedestrian bridge,” Florida International University said in a statement.
“At this time we are still involved in rescue efforts and gathering information.”
The project was a collaboration between MCM Construction, a Miami-based contractor, and Figg Bridge Design, based in Tallahassee. Figg is responsible for the iconic Sunshine Skyway Bridge across Tampa Bay. They both promised to cooperate with investigations.
Bridge collapses in the United States are infrequent.
The deadliest this century was the 2007 collapse of an eight-lane bridge in Minneapolis, Minnesota, which killed 13 people. The Kremlin said it is preparing to retaliate against Britain’s decision to expel 23 Russian diplomats and halt high-level meetings between the governments. After Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced on Friday that Russia would expel British diplomats, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow’s response “will be coming shortly”. Tensions between Britain and Russia mounted after ex-Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter were poisoned by a militarygrade nerve agent in the English city of Salisbury earlier this month. Britain blamed Russia for the attack. Russia denies being the source of the nerve agent, suggesting it could have been another country.