US: Death toll after Miami, Florida collapse of newly-installed pedestrian bridge rises to six

Monday, March 19, 2018

The UniversityCity Bridge collapsed near the Florida International University campus in the city of Miami on Thursday around 1:30 p.m. It was a newly-installed cable-stayed pedestrian bridge spanning Southwest Eighth Street, a heavily traveled multi-lane highway which is part of Tamiami Trail. Some vehicles on the highway which were waiting for the traffic light to turn green have been completely crushed by the falling concrete. Six people died, officials reported on Friday morning. On Monday police had identified all the victims and confirmed no more victims would be found.

Five of the deadly victims died on the scene, while another one died later in hospital, according to Miami Dade police spokesman Alvaro Zabaleta. At least 8 cars were trapped. About ten trauma patients have been hospitalized, the condition of at least two of them being critical, according to hospital officals.

On Monday morning, the police confirmed that there are no more victims trapped in the bridge debris. They identified the six victims as Rolando Fraga Hernandez, Oswald Gonzalez Alberto Arias (born in 1960), Alexa Duran (born in 1999), Brandon Brownfield (born in 1978). Navarro Brown had died in hospital.

According to National Transport Safety Board, the NTSB’s Go Team began arriving on scene at 10 p.m. Rescue teams have been searching the whole night long for survivors under the big mass of rubble and debris, but they had big problems getting through it. At the same time, they must guarantee both their own and the public safety, while the evidence material which would be needed to determine the exact cause of the accident needed to be preserved too. Listening devices, fiber optics, search dogs and heavy cranes were used in the rescue operations.

Construction crews were post-tensioning diagonal beams on the bridge’s north end when it collapsed, the National Transportation Safety Board said on Friday. National Transportation Safety Board emphasized that this may or may not have been the cause of collapse and investigations were ongoing.

On Friday morning, a video was tweeted by the university in which FIU President Mark Rosenberg expressed his condolences.

At 10am on Friday morning Miami-Dade County Fire Chief Dave Downey said the rescue operation could not find any more survivors, he said, “We exhausted all our search and rescue capabilities. We used auditory, visual, canines and determined there are no longer any survivors. We will work to get all these victims removed.”

On Monday, an Orlando attorney filed a lawsuit against Munilla Construction Management and FIGG Bridge Engineers. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of a cyclist Marquise Rashaad Hepburn who was injured by a car that was swerving to avoid the bridge debris as it was collapsing.

W. Denney Pate of FIGG Bridge Engineers, the engineer who led the bridge development, had reported cracks in the construction via a voicemail to a Florida Department of Transportation employee, expressing no concerns about safety, two days before the collapse. But the employee returned to work and received the voice mail only on Friday. The bridge was opened five days before the collapse, and reportedly had cracks in the construction two days before the.collapse.

The police homicide bureau will start an investigation as soon as all the rescue operations have been finished. According to Florida Senator Marco Rubio, the accident happened just when the bridge cables were being tightened. “If anybody’s done anything wrong, we’ll hold them accountable”, Rubio said.

The bridge, spanning eight highway lanes and weighing 950 tons, had been installed only last Saturday. It was intended to connect the northern entrance of the university (University Park) to Sweetwater, thus facilitating shuttling for the students between the campus and their residences. The bridge had not been opened yet for pedestrians, it was scheduled to be completely ready in December 2018.

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