Bush visits collapsed bridge
George Bush meets survivors in Minnesota as divers continue to search for bodies.
Mary Peters, the US transportation secretary, said a review of the nation’s state-based bridge inspection programme has been ordered to “make sure that it’s as robust as it needs to be.”
She said the department ordered immediate inspections of 750 bridges similar to the one that collapsed in Minneapolis.
Warnings ignored
Federal officials have said the collapsed bridge was rated “structurally deficient” twice, in 1990 and 2005, and that warnings were ignored by the state, which relied on patchwork fixes instead.
The accident has led to orders by the government to inspect more than 70,000 bridges across the country previously found with a variety of structural defects.
The US congress is working on a $250m federal aid package for the disaster, which occurred during rush hour and injured at least 79 people.
The 1990 inspection cited significant corrosion in the bearings of the collapsed span, a finding which required portions to be repaired or replaced, and inspections every two years.
Subsequently, fatigue cracks and corrosion in the steel around the bridge’s joint were repaired but a federal inspection in 2005 still rated the bridge structurally deficient.
Casualties
The number of dead still stood at five on Saturday but divers have been continuing to search for the bodies eight or more people still believed to be missing.
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States have been asked to inspect more than
70,000 bridges across the US [GALLO/GETTY] |
Authorities credited the low death toll to the speed of rush-hour traffic, which gave vehicles little momentum to slide into the river, and a bridge design that minimised falling debris with keeping the death toll relatively low.
At a site set up by the Red Cross to offer counselling, about 30 friends and family had been seeking news on five missing motorists, and counsellors said they were growing more distressed.
“They’ve just been waiting for word, any kind of word,” Ted Canova, a Red Cross spokesman, said Saturday.
Of the roughly 100 injured in the collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge, 24 remained hospitalised, five in critical condition.
Among the missing included a pregnant woman and her infant, and a van with four Somali immigrants, local media reported.
Structural deficiencies
The collapsed bridge last underwent a full inspection on June 15, 2006, and was not scheduled for replacement until 2020.
Bush has said the federal government would help rebuild the bridge, but made it clear the state government was responsible for fixing the structural deficiencies on the eight-lane bridge.
“We in the federal government must respond, and respond robustly, to help the people there not only recover, but to make sure that lifeline of activity gets rebuilt as quickly as possible,” he said.
