SAO PAULO (AP) — A bridge linking two northern states in Brazil collapsed, killing at the very least two folks and leaving a dozen others lacking, police mentioned Monday. A sulphuric acid spill is complicating the rescue operation.
Footage obtained by native residents confirmed automobiles and vehicles have been crossing the Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira bridge when giant sections crumbled right into a river on Sunday.
Police working on the border of the northern states of Maranhao and Tocantins mentioned that eight autos have been lacking: 4 vehicles, two automobiles and two bikes. Police and Brazil’s highway division mentioned they began investigations on the case.
Trusted information and each day delights, proper in your inbox
See for your self — The Yodel is the go-to supply for each day information, leisure and feel-good tales.
The 533-meter-long (1,748-foot-long) bridge between the cities of Estreito and Aguiarnopolis was constructed within the Sixties and situated 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) north of the capital, Brasilia.
Magnum Coelho, a colonel on the native firefighters’ workplace, instructed journalists that sending divers for rescue operations is harmful as a result of the Tocantins River could possibly be contaminated by sulfuric acid from one of many lacking vehicles that fell from the bridge.
The bridge collapse was amongst a number of tragedies in Brazil over the weekend. On Saturday, a crash involving a passenger bus and a truck killed dozens of individuals on a freeway in Minas Gerais, a state in southeastern Brazil. On Sunday night time, authorities confirmed the variety of deaths had risen to 41.
Native authorities mentioned Sunday that the truck driver is on the unfastened and will face legal accountability due to allegedly chubby cargo which will have triggered the crash.
The Minas Gerais state’s hearth division mentioned that a number of folks have been taken to hospitals close to the town of Teofilo Otoni. The bus had reportedly departed from Sao Paulo and was carrying 45 passengers.
Additionally on Sunday, at the very least 10 folks died after a small plane crashed in Gramado, a southern city well-liked with vacationers. Greater than a dozen folks have been injured on the bottom, Brazil’s Civil Protection Company mentioned.
The airplane was piloted by Luiz Claudio Galeazzi, a Brazilian businessman who was touring together with his household to Sao Paulo State. Brazil’s Civil Protection Company mentioned that the airplane hit the chimney of a house after which the second ground of a constructing earlier than crashing right into a cellphone retailer.