Pedestrian span collapses in Miami
At least 4 killed, 9 hurt in crush of debris, officials say
MIAMI — A pedestrian bridge under construction collapsed onto a busy Miami highway Thursday, crushing vehicles beneath its massive slabs of concrete and steel and killing at least four people, authorities said.
Search crews worked into the night, using dogs, search cameras and sensitive listening devices in a frantic search to find survivors among the debris.
“Everybody is working hard to make sure we rescue anyone who can be rescued,” Gov. Rick Scott said.
But Miami-Dade police director Juan Perez said hopes were dwindling with the passing of time. “We know that there's going to be a negative outcome at the end of the day,” Perez said.
Four people were found dead amid the chaotic scene, and nine victims were taken “early on” to hospitals, Fire Chief Dave Downey said.
At least eight vehicles were crushed.
The 950-ton bridge had been assembled by the side of the highway and moved into place Saturday to great fanfare. The span stretched almost 200 feet to connect Florida International University with the city of Sweetwater.
“This bridge was about goodness, not sadness,” said FIU President Mark Rosenberg. “Now we're feeling immense sadness, uncontrollable sadness.”
Scott said an investigation will uncover “why this happened and what happened,” and he vowed to hold accountable those responsible.
Jacob Miller, a senior at FIU, was visiting a friend in Emergency workers scramble to find survivors and secure the collapsed pedestrian bridge Thursday in Miami. a dorm when he heard sirens and horns. Hewent to a balcony and could see rubble coming down. “I saw there were multiple cars crushed under the bridge. It was just terrible,” he said.
National Transportation Safety Board chairman Robert Sumwalt III said a team of specialists was heading to Miami.
An accelerated construction method was supposed to reduce risks to workers and pedestrians and minimize traffic disruption, the university said. Renderings showed a tall, off-center tower with cables attached to the walkway to support it. When the bridge collapsed, the main tower had not been installed, and it was unclear what the builders were using as temporary supports.
Robert Bea, a professor of engineering and construction management at the University of California at Berkeley said it was too early to know what happened, but the decision to use what the bridge builders called an “innovative installation” was risky, especially because the bridge spanned a heavily traveled thoroughfare.
Sweetwater police Detective Juan Llera was in a nearby meeting when the bridge collapsed. “I heard a ‘boom’ like a bomb had exploded,” he said. “At first I thought it was a terrorist attack.”
He said he saw three construction workers who had been injured. One had a head injury and was passing in and out of consciousness, another had a leg injury leg and the third was lying on the street unconscious. He started performing CPR on him. “We were able to keep him alive to send him to the hospital,” Llera said.
Kendall Regional Medical Center received several injured people. Two were in “extremely critical” condition and others were stable with injuries such as broken bones, bruises and abrasions, said Dr. Mark McKenney, the hospital’s director of general surgery.
The main companies behind the $14.2 million construction project have faced questions about past work, and one was fined in 2012 when a 90-ton section of a bridge collapsed in Virginia.
Munilla Construction Management, or MCM, the Miami-based construction management firm that won the bridge contract, took its website down for a time Thursday. But an archived version featured a news release touting the project with FIGG Bridge Engineers, a Tallahassee firm.
MCM said on Twitter that it was “a family business and we are all devastated and doing everything we can to assist. We will conduct a full investigation to determine exactly what went wrong and will cooperate with investigators on scene in every way.”
FIGG said in a statement, “In our 40-year history, nothing like this has ever happened before.”
Court documents show that MCM was accused of substandard work in a lawsuit filed this month. The suit said a worker at Fort Lauderdale International Airport, where the company is working on an expansion, was injured when a makeshift MCM-built bridge col- lapsed under his weight.
A review of Occupational Safety Health Administration records shows that MCM has been fined for 11 safety violations in the past five years. The fines totaling more than $50,000 arose from complaints about unsafe trenches, cement dust and other problems at its Florida work sites.
FIU is the second largest university in the state, with 55,000 students, most of whom live off-campus. A student was killed in August while crossing the road that the bridge was supposed to span.
President Donald Trump tweeted that he was monitoring the “heartbreaking bridge collapse,” calling it “so tragic.”