US News
At least nine dead in Mississippi river bridge collapse
Aug 2, 2007, 8:55 GMT
Minneapolis - At least nine people have been confirmed dead in the collapse of a key Mississippi river bridge linking the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul in the US state of Minnesota, local media reported early Thursday.
The daily Minneapolis Star Tribune quoted local authorities as saying that the death toll could rise in the accident, which occurred Wednesday during the height of the evening rush hour.
More than 60 injured people were transported to at least three hospitals.
Built in 1967, the bridge was undergoing non-structural repaving work this summer, and some lanes of traffic appeared to have been closed at the time of the disaster, possibly reducing the number of cars and casualties.
The bridge passed state inspections in 2005 and 2006 with some superficial problems but no structural deficiencies, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty said.
Kristi Rollwagen, an emergency preparedness official with the city of Minneapolis, said that an estimated 50 vehicles were submerged in the Mississippi.
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
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Such tragedies will continue to multiply -- the effects of diverting hundreds of billions of dollars (probably closer to a trillion by now) from the needs of our homeland to the Iraq debacle will debilitate our population for decades.
samko is talking like the brainless fool he obviously is. This is a terrible tragedy
Carl - 'sounds like terrorism' is a typically knee-jerk reaction, fuelled by the paranoia over terrorism in america. Any rational person would examine the facts and seek evidence before drawing a conclusion
Haha, sounds like Terror! Hmm...
But I guess America is like England, once something like this occurs, it'll be in the news asking WHY wasnt the bridge made safer in the earlier months. The newspapers and Television always seem to miss out the good points, for example trucks COULD HAVE been on there way to fix it that very day, but we're delayed. Intead the papers jump and make everybody believe it's the State's fault etc.
Oh well.
The State's responsibility is to maintain the bridge - meaning trucks should've been sent BEFORE the bridge reached this point of structural failure.
Plus, previous year's inspections passed, so it's either a lapse in inspection quality or they need to raise the standards.
Saddly the nation has bee facing major crises in aging infrastucture for decades. While politicans are quick to restore surface paving and plant roadside flowers and attractive curbing for a asthhetics, the much more serious problems are very costly and are continuously put off. I have heard a statistic that claims that over 50% of the nations bridges are in need of serious repair or replacement. Couple this with the diminshing U.S. steel and concrete producing industry as well as the lack of new engineers into the market, (we import over 40% of our engineers from overseas), and we get a very gloomy forecast.
OUTRAGEOUS HOW THIS HAS HAPPENED TWINS DONT NEED A NEW STADIUM ALL THAT MONEY SHOULD BE SPENT ON THE BRIDGES CLOSE THEM ALL DOWN UNTIL THEY ARE FIXED PEOPLE WILL LEARN TO TAKE PUBLIC TRANSIT OR NOT COME IN AT ALL BUSH ADMINISTRATION HAS TO PLACE PRIORITY ON FIXING ROADS AND BRIDGES BEFORE TERRORISTS ATTACK THEM AGAIN THIS HAD TO HAVE BEEN A STRIKE CUZ NOBODY KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED IF YOU DONT AGREE WITH FIXING OUR BRIDGES THEN JUST HEAD ON OVER TO GUANTANAMO YOURSELF
Guvnah chuclehaed wuz told 10 yea's agoo his bridge wuz baad...ain't no fault of ol GWB boyh! Them bridges is made of steel an concrete. All ya gotta do is inspect and repaih em son! ya screwed th pooch thire guvnah an yur gona git an ass whippin, s take it lahke a man!
What part of 'deficient' does the state of Minnesota not understand? To a bureaucrat, it means '20 more years, uness it collapses and kills someone'?
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CarlAug 2nd, 2007 - 09:37:28
Sounds like terrorism to me!
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