Collapsed US bridge was deficient, governor says (2nd Lead)

Aug 2, 2007, 15:03 GMT

Washington - An eight-lane highway bridge that collapsed into the Mississippi during rush-hour traffic, killing at least four people, had been rated structurally deficient by inspectors, the state governor said Thursday.

Officials said dozens of cars were still submerged in the river and the death toll was expected to rise after Wednesday's disaster on the 40-year-old span linking the cities of Minneapolis and St Paul in the northern state of Minnesota. About 60 people were injured.

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty acknowledged that a federal survey in recent years found the bridge structurally troubled - one of about 80,000 bridges in the US that have the designation, he said.

But state engineers later determined that the ill-fated span, part of the I-35W interstate highway, would need to be replaced only in about 2020, he said.

'Structurally deficient does not mean immediately close the bridge,' Pawlenty told Fox News television.

The disaster sparked debate about the decaying state of the US interstate highway system, launched in the late 1950s by then president Dwight D Eisenhower.

Eisenhower, a US general in Europe during World War II, was inspired by the autobahns begun in Germany by Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

The Minnesota bridge, built in 1967 and including a 140-metre section across the river, was undergoing surface repairs when it crashed.

Initially, Pawlenty said the bridge passed state inspections in 2005 and 2006 with superficial problems but no structural deficiencies.

Officials first put the confirmed death toll at up to nine, but revised it to four early Thursday. By dawn Thursday, rescuers said they had little hope of finding more survivors in the crumpled wreckage of the steel-truss bridge.

Kristi Rollwagen, an emergency preparedness official with the city of Minneapolis, said that an estimated 50 vehicles were still submerged in the Mississippi river.