Bumper-to-bumper traffic crawled across the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River on Wednesday evening when the surface buckled, plunging cars, trucks and the people in them 64 feet.
Late Wednesday, seven people were reported dead, 20 were missing and more than 60 were injured, authorities said.
Officials expect the death toll to rise as the search effort turns to recovery today.
“It was one of the most tragic nights in the history of Minneapolis,” said Mayor R.T. Rybak, during a news conference at City Hall on Wednesday night.
The 64-foot-high bridge was undergoing maintenance and had a Minnesota Department of Transportation crew on it when the collapse occurred shortly after 6 p.m., authorities said. It was unclear Wednesday night the full number of cars or people affected by the collapse.
A school bus also was on the bridge at the time it fell, according to officials. Sixty children were taken from the bus. Up to 10 were transported to area hospitals.
Aerial shots from local television stations showed the entire span of I-35W had crumpled into the river below. Some of the injured were carried up the riverbank, while emergency workers and volunteers tended to others on the ground. A BNSF train was on the tracks below the bridge and hit by pieces.
It was unclear Wednesday night the total number of cars or motorists involved in the collapse.
“Obviously, this is a catastrophe of historic proportions for Minnesota,” Gov. Tim Pawlenty said.
While authorities didn’t rule out any cause Wednesday, they indicated structural failure as the likely cause. Federal transportation officials are expected to arrive today to investigate.
Contradictory reports surfaced Wednesday about the bridge’s inspection history.
Inspectors in June 2005 reported the bridge might be in need of replacement, according to data from the Federal Highway Administration.
Pawlenty said the bridge’s three spans were inspected in 2005 and 2006, and no structural deficiencies were found. The bridge deck was scheduled to be replaced in 2020 at the earliest, the governor said.
Contractors were doing concrete, lighting, guardrails and joint repair work on the bridge Wednesday. All but one contractor had been accounted for as of 9 p.m.
The heavily traveled bridge gave way at 6:05 p.m., dumping at least 50 vehicles into the water and onto the river’s banks, 64 feet below.
Travelers included daily commuters, fans heading to a Minnesota Twins baseball game at the Metrodome and a bus carrying kids returning from a field trip.
The scene just east of downtown Minneapolis defied belief.
Cars lay smashed amid jutting concrete and steel or submerged in the river as rescue workers and volunteers raced to pull people from the wreckage. Black columns of smoke rose from a burning tractor-trailer rig wedged under a collapsed section of concrete.
Janet Stately, of Minneapolis, was driving southbound on I-35W from Duluth with her daughter, Brianne. Stately said she exited onto University Avenue just before reaching the bridge. On the overpass, she heard the cracking of the structure and saw smoke rising from below.
“I was driving the car, and I screamed when I heard it crack,” Stately said. “It’s like it went in slow motion. I heard the crack and I saw the cars going straight in. There was not a space between the cars on that bridge. I tried to tell people on the road if you can swim get down there and help.”
Bicyclists rode down to the scene, Stately said. Motorists were honking their horns.
“I just saw concrete dust and I don’t know if it was water flying up in the air,” Stately said. “And the noise, I don’t even know how to describe it to you.”
Stately broke into tears thinking about a school bus with children driving next to her on I-35W before she exited.
“I kept screaming, ‘There’s kids on that bus!’ ” she said. “I just said, ‘That bus is going to go in.’ I hope those kids are OK.”
According to officials, 60 children were taken from the bus, which did not land in the river. Up to 10 were transported to area hospitals.
“It sounded like a huge rumble, like two big airplanes were flying overhead at the same time,” said Kathleen Joseph, who lives on the top floor of the Riverview Tower and has a bird’s-eye view of the bridge.
Michael Vechell, 25, of Minneapolis, was traveling along I-35W heading into Minneapolis when traffic came to a dead stop.
“There was a huge dust cloud moving to us,” he said.
When he saw what was happening, he went to help get people out of their cars and later, with others, helped carry injured people to ambulance. He described seeing cars in the river with huge cement slabs on them.
“It’s pretty sad, man,” he said.
Officials dismissed the notion that the disaster was anything other than an accident.
“It is not likely that this was a terrorist incident,” Pawlenty said.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff issued a statement late Wednesday saying there was no indication of terrorism.
The steel arch truss bridge was built in 1967 and stretched 1,900 feet, including a 458-foot main span across the river.
Eighteen workers from Progressive Contractors Inc. of St. Michael, Minn., had been repairing the eight-lane bridge’s surface as part of improvements along that stretch of the interstate. Two lanes were closed in each direction.
As of 8 p.m., one worker was unaccounted for and three injured, said Tom Sloan, head of the firm’s bridge division.
PCI workers rolled down the bridge as it collapsed. At least one worker fell into the water and managed to swim to the surface.
“What my workers went through and witnessed is incomprehensible,” Sloan said.
Sloan said there was at least one Minnesota Department of Transportation official at the scene inspecting their work when the bridge collapsed.
PCI officials said they could think of no reason why their work would have caused the bridge to collapse, said David Lillehaug, the company’s attorney.
The survivors, pulled from crushed cars and carried from the river, were taken away by emergency personnel and volunteers, loaded on backboards and in the back of pickup trucks.
There were scenes of people rushing to the bridge to help. Crews from area police and fire departments gave them grateful taps on the back.
A few were helping unload the injured from rescue boats. One group, from the Maranatha Christian Fellowship Church, set up water coolers to provide ice water to anyone who would need it.
“We’re out here because we think that’s what Jesus would do,” said John Gill.
A Twins game against the Kansas City Royals went on after the collapse.
With rescuers rushing to the collapsed freeway bridge just four blocks from the Metrodome, “the last thing those first responders needed was an audience,” Twins president Dave St. Peter said.
Today’s game, however, won’t be played until the Royals return to Minneapolis in a month. After consulting with the Minnesota Department of Public Safety, St. Peter said, the team postponed the finale of the four-game series.
No decision has been made about this weekend’s four-game series with Cleveland.
St. Peter said all of the team’s front-office employees and the players’ families had been accounted for. But he acknowledged that the bridge was likely carrying several carloads of fans headed for the baseball game, and he said there were concerns that some concession employees may have been involved.
“Certainly there were Twins fans impacted by this,” St. Peter said. “Yeah, it’s a tough night to play baseball.”
Groundbreaking ceremonies at the site of the Twins’ new stadium, planned for Thursday afternoon, have also been postponed.
In response to the disaster, Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor canceled Wednesday night’s scheduled news conference, which had been called to introduce players acquired in Tuesday’s trade of Kevin Garnett to the Boston Celtics.
Taylor’s eyes welled up as he met with the media at Target Center not long after the bridge collapse. He said his granddaughter was near the scene but was safe. Taylor didn’t elaborate.
Following the collapse, the pedestrian bridge to the south of the accident filled with bicyclists, inline skaters and pedestrians – many of them students at the University of Minnesota.
“It’s weird. It’s not comprehensible,” said Tessa Gudmestad, 20, of Minneapolis. The University of Minnesota student said that she instinctively called her mother when she saw the aftermath of the collapse.
The Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis planned two prayer services today at noon for the victims, survivors and families of the bridge disaster, at St. Olaf Catholic Church in Minneapolis and the Cathedral of St. Paul.
Steve Treichler, senior pastor at Hope Community Church in downtown Minneapolis, showed up at the Holiday Inn Metrodome to help survivors.
The pastor said that more than a dozen other spiritual leaders had come to lend an ear.
“Mostly, you just listen. We live in a world that’s not perfect,” he said. “They’re asking ‘Why me?’ “
The landmark bells of the Minneapolis City Hall and Hennepin County Courthouse will ring from noon to 1 p.m. Friday in remembrance of the casualties of the collapse.
The last major bridge collapse in the Twin Cities happened on April 24, 1990, involving the Lake Street-Marshall Avenue bridge between Minneapolis and St. Paul. One person died in the collapse.
This story contains information from the Associated Press
