Miami bridge collapses; multiple fatalities feared

A newly installed pedestrian crossway over a busy Miami thoroughfare at the Florida International University campus collapsed Thursday afternoon, crushing cars and killing several people, local officials said.

In what one witness called a chaotic scene, rescue workers pored over the rubble, trying to find trapped drivers. Doctors in white coats streamed out of a nearby ambulatory care center and the university’s medical school, while one driver, dressed in pink hospital scrubs, crawled out of her mangled car.

At a news conference, local officials said Thursday afternoon that eight people had been transported to a hospital and that eight vehicles had been trapped under the bridge. Some of the vehicles were stopped at a red light at the time the bridge came down.

“This pedestrian bridge weighs several hundred tons, and it is still on the roadway,” Lt. Alejandro Camacho, a spokesman for the Florida Highway Patrol, said. “I don’t know what is underneath.”

Officials did not confirm the number of dead during a news conference, but Sen. Bill Nelson, D-Fla., told local television affiliates in Miami that six to 10 people may have died in the accident. Nelson cited no one specifically, but said he had spoken to several local officials.

“I can tell you that having talked shortly after the collapse to the university president, to the mayor, to the chief of police,” Nelson said, “they are fearing the worst, that there are going to be maybe as many as six deaths, and another number that I heard, it could be upwards of 10.”

Camacho confirmed that multiple fatalities were expected. “There are going to be several,” he said, “based on the amount of vehicles that are underneath.”

Speaking at the news conference, Juan Perez, director of the Miami-Dade Police Department, said: “We’re not confirming any deaths. What Sen. Nelson says, I cannot answer to.”

As soon as the search and rescue operation was over, Perez said, the police homicide bureau would take the lead in investigating. He said the state attorney was also “on standby and waiting to come in and work this case with us.”

Jonathan Muñoz, 21, a junior premedical major, said he had just driven under the pedestrian bridge and entered a nearby parking garage when he heard a loud bang. He thought he had hit something as he looked for a parking spot, so he pulled over and checked his car.

A few minutes later, he got a frantic call from his girlfriend, who had been with him in the car moments earlier. She was near tears.

“Jonathan, the bridge collapsed,” she said. He ran over and saw a construction worker with blood coming out of his neck.

“When we got there, cars were honking nonstop,” he said. “It was a scene in a movie.”

He said the cars must have been stopped at a red light, because so many cars were stuck: “It was one car after another.”

Another student, Kurt Baker, had just exited the highway. “I heard what sounded to me like a sonic boom from an aircraft which shook the ground below,” said Baker, a junior studying mechanical engineering.

The bridge had a span of about 174 feet over Southwest Eighth Street, a major thoroughfare that crosses the county, connecting the FIU campus in western Miami-Dade County with the city of Sweetwater.

It had been assembled off-site and moved to the location Saturday. The bridge was still under construction and was not expected to open to the public until the end of the year, a university official said.

The National Transportation Safety Board said that it would investigate the collapse. Munilla Construction Management, which was building the bridge, promised in a statement that it would investigate what went wrong and would cooperate with any other inquiry. The engineering firm for the project, FIGG Bridge Engineers, said that it would also cooperate with investigators.

“Barring somebody using it that wasn’t supposed to be there, it’s either an engineering problem or it’s a construction problem, but that’s why you bring in the professionals,” Nelson told CBS Miami, noting that the deaths had come tragically soon after 17 people were shot at a high school in Parkland.

He said he had spoken to the university president, Mark B. Rosenberg, soon after the collapse, and “you can imagine the near shock that he was almost in.”

The main span of the bridge was lifted from its temporary supports, rotated 90 degrees across several lanes of traffic and lowered into position Saturday, according to The FIU News.

The distinctive-looking cable bridge was intended to address safety concerns for FIU students who walk to the campus from suburban Sweetwater, where thousands of them live. A student, Alexis Dale, was hit and killed by a vehicle in August while crossing the thoroughfare at a nearby intersection, according to the Miami Herald.

The $14.2 million bridge, including surrounding plazas, was federally funded and part of an effort to make the area more attractive, the Herald reported.