A bridge connecting two northern states in Brazil has collapsed, killing at least two people and leaving a dozen others missing, police said Monday. A sulfuric acid leak complicates the rescue operation.
Footage taken by residents showed cars and trucks crossing the Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira bridge when large pieces collapsed into a river on Sunday.
Mauricio Marinho / REUTERS
Police on the border of the northern states of Maranhao and Tocantins said eight vehicles were missing: four trucks, two cars and two motorcycles. Police and Brazil’s highway agency said they had opened an investigation into the case.
The 533-meter-long bridge between the cities of Estreito and Aguiarnopolis was built in the 1960s and is 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) north of the capital Brasilia.
Magnum Coelho, a colonel in the local fire department, told journalists that sending divers to rescue operations was dangerous because the Tocantins River could be contaminated by sulfuric acid from one of the missing trucks that fell from the bridge.
Mauricio Marinho / REUTERS
The bridge collapse was one of several tragedies in Brazil over the weekend. On Saturday, dozens of people were killed in an accident between a passenger bus and a truck on a highway in Minas Gerais, a state in southeastern Brazil. On Sunday evening, authorities confirmed that the number of deaths had risen to 41.
Local authorities said Sunday that the truck driver had fled and could be prosecuted for allegedly carrying an overweight load that may have caused the accident.
The Minas Gerais state fire department said several people were taken to hospitals near the town of Teofilo Otoni. The bus reportedly departed from Sao Paulo and had 45 passengers on board.
Also on Sunday, at least 10 people died after a small plane crashed in Gramado, a southern city popular with tourists. According to the Brazilian Civil Protection Agency, more than a dozen people were injured on the ground.
The pilot of the plane was Luiz Claudio Galeazzi, a Brazilian businessman who was traveling with his family to the state of Sao Paulo. According to Brazil’s Civil Protection Agency, the plane hit the chimney of a house and then the second floor of a building before crashing into a cell phone store.
