Bridge collapse rescue shifts to recovery effort

Rescuers shift to recovery effort

CTV.ca News Staff

Thu. August. 2 2007 10:05 AM ET

Emergency workers in Minneapolis have shifted their focus from searching for survivors to trying to recover the bodies after a major bridge collapsed into the Mississippi River during rush-hour traffic on Wednesday.

The collapse happened shortly after 6 p.m. local time, sending a massive cloud of dust into the sky and terrifying onlookers during the height of rush hour.

"It's a search and recovery not a rescue effort, they have changed that connotation," CNN correspondent Rusty Dornin told CTV Newsnet on Thursday.

"They don't believe there are any more survivors in the water. They did have to abandon, however, even the recovery efforts overnight. It was too dark, too dangerous, huge chunks of concrete and twisted metal."

There has been some confusion over the number of people killed in the collapse. Authorities said seven were killed, then raised the number to nine, then reduced it to four on Thursday morning.

However, at least 20 people are still missing and the death toll is expected to continue to rise as the recovery operation continues.

More than 60 people were injured and as many as 50 vehicles were in the river, and police said they believed more vehicles were submerged under water and had not yet been located.

Police Lt. Amelia Huffman said that initial reports of seven people killed were based on the best estimates authorities had last night.

Families of the missing have gathered at the site to await news of their loved ones.

"I've never wanted to see my brother so much in my life," Kristi Foster, who went to an information centre looking for her brother Kirk, told The Associated Press. She had not heard from her brother or his girlfriend, Krystle Webb, since the previous night.

With little light available and twisted metal covering the riverbed, divers were forced to stop examining some of the wreckage until morning, and it's expected to take some time before all the bodies are recovered.

"They're saying this is going to be slow going," Dornin said. "Not only do you have the currents to deal with, but all the very dangerous debris in the river, concrete and chunks of steel, and they're saying it could be several days before they actually get the bodies out of the river."

The collapse happened while the bridge was under the full weight of rush-hour traffic.

"There were two lanes of traffic, bumper to bumper, at the point of the collapse. Those cars did go into the river,'' said Minneapolis Police Lt. Amelia Huffman.

Four lanes were open on the eight-lane Interstate 35W bridge at the time, while two pairs of outer lanes had been closed to repairs.

Many people were likely trying to get to the Minneapolis Twins baseball game at the nearby Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome.

Vehicles fell into the water, along with tonnes of concrete and steel. A school bus carrying about 60 children was on part of the collapsed bridge, but the students and driver were said to have escaped without serious injuries.

Leone Carstens, who lives several blocks from the bridge, was at home when the collapse occurred.

"There was this roar, I guess you would call it. I walked out to the other room and looked out the window and it was gone. It had already happened," she told CTV's Canada AM on Thursday.

Melissa Hughes, 32, narrowly survived when her car dropped several feet along with the western edge of the bridge.

"You know that free-fall feeling? I felt that twice," she told The Associated Press.

A truck landed on top of her car, heavily damaging part of the roof. But somehow Hughes escaped without any injuries.

"I had no idea there was a vehicle on my car," she said. "It's really very surreal."

In Washington, the U.S. Homeland Security Department said it had no indications the collapse was linked to any terrorist act, but was more likely the result of a structural failure.

The 160-metre-long, 40-year-old bridge links Minneapolis and adjacent St. Paul, spanning the Mississippi River.

Workers had been conducting work recently to repair the bridge's surface. Sen. Norm Coleman, R-Minn., told CNN that the bridge had been structurally inspected three years ago and received a clean bill of health.

When still intact, the bridge rose about 20 metres above the river's surface. Between 100,000 and 200,000 vehicles per day are estimated to use the bridge.

With files from The Associated Press