Divers search for victims of bridge disaster, as Bush set to visit

Aug 4, 2007, 14:35 GMT

Washington - Divers were still looking for victims Saturday as US President George W Bush travelled to the scene of Wednesday's disaster in which an eight-lane highway bridge plunged 20 metres into the Mississippi River during rush hour, killing at least five people.

According to police, 12 of the 60 cars had been retrieved from the river by Friday, but no further bodies had been found after Wednesday's disaster on the 40-year-old span linking the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul in the central northern state of Minnesota.

In his weekly radio broadcast, Bush pledged 250 million dollars in government support to rebuild the bridge quickly.

Police on Saturday said eight people were still missing, including a young mother with a 20-month-old baby. Between 30 and 80 of those injured were still being treated in hospital, CNN reports said.

Police said that 20 divers were working in the Mississippi River under dark and hazardous conditions caused by mud, strong river currents and wreckage.

According to Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan, divers could not get to any more vehicles because they were lying overturned on the riverbed.

The causes of the accident were still unclear. Experts from the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) reviewed amateur video footage of the collapse Friday.

NTSB Chairman, Mark Resenker, told journalists in Minneapolis that the bridge shifted 50 feet to the east on the southern end, and that investigators were focusing their attention on that location.

He also added that there could have been a structural failure on the north end of the bridge and that that failure could have transferred the load to the southern end, essentially causing a ripple effect, US media reported.

Investigators were also studying photos of the bridge before the collapse.

Cracks were found in the bridge's steel in the 1990s, but the problem was addressed and did not worsen, state officials said Thursday.

When the span was last inspected in June 2006, its state of repair was rated 4 on a scale of 0-9, making it 'structurally deficient,' the US transport authorities said.

The rating signalled no imminent danger, and the ill-fated span was due for replacement in 2020 at the earliest, officials said.