Pedestrian bridge crushes cars below
MIAMI — Florida officials said Thursday that four people had been found dead in the rubble of a collapsed South Florida pedestrian bridge, where the frantic search for any survivors continued into the night.
The bridge was under construction and collapsed onto a busy Miami highway Thursday, crushing at least eight vehicles under massive slabs of concrete and steel. One side of the bridge led to Florida International University, a school west of the city’s downtown.
Kendall Regional Medical Center received 10 injured people, including some construction workers. Of those, two were in “extremely critical” condition and the other eight had broken bones, bruises and abrasions, said Dr. Mark McKenney, the hospital’s director of general surgery.
Search-and-rescue crews drilled holes into the debris and used their highly trained dogs to look for survivors. They had to work carefully because part of the structure was still unsafe.
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 with the city of Sweetwater. It had been expected to open to foot traffic next year.
When the bridge collapsed, the main tower had not yet been installed, and it was unclear what the builders were using as supports.
Robert Bea, a professor of engineering and construction management at the University of California, Berkeley, said the decision to use what the bridge builders called an “innovative installation” was risky, especially because the bridge spanned a heavily traveled thoroughfare.
“Innovations take a design firm into an area where they don’t have applicable experience, and then we have another unexpected failure on our hands,” Bea said.
Gov. Rick Scott said an investigation will get to the bottom of “why this happened and what happened.”
The main companies behind the $14.2 million project have faced questions about their past work, and one was fined in 2012 when a 90-ton section of a bridge collapsed in Virginia, causing minor injuries to several workers.