At least one person is dead and 16 are missing after the collapse of a bridge in northern Brazil, according to a new report from the Federal Highway Police (PRF) on Monday.
Four trucks, two cars and two motorcycles were on the part of the bridge which collapsed on Sunday afternoon, between the Brazilian states of Maranhão (north-east) and Tocantins (north), according to authorities.
Two of the trucks were transporting sulfuric acid, which “complicates the search” for the missing due to possible “toxic” contamination of the water, a PRF spokesperson told AFP on Monday.
Search operations were suspended Monday morning, but firefighters were looking for a way to resume them. Water supply in the area has been suspended.
AFP
The PRF spokesperson told AFP that the body of a 25-year-old woman had been “found and identified”, and raised the “hypothesis” that there were “up to 16 missing “. A 36-year-old man was rescued alive.
An initial report showed two dead and 12 missing.
“I am following with great attention the evolution of the situation after the collapse of the Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira bridge,” declared President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in a message on the social network “condolences” to the victims.
This bridge, more than 500 meters long and built in the 1960s, is the main connecting route between Maranhão and Tocantins.
The causes of the collapse are still unknown, although initial information available to the National Department of Transport Infrastructure shows that the central beam collapsed.
In addition to this collapse, Brazil experienced two other serious deadly accidents last weekend.
On Saturday morning, 41 people died in a bus accident in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, after a truck’s cargo broke loose and slammed into a bus.
Then, on Sunday, ten members of the same family died when their small plane crashed in a commercial area of the tourist town of Gramado, in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, in the south of the country.