Brazil’s Juscelino Kubitschek de Oliveira Bridge partially collapsed on December 22, killing at least one person and leaving 14 missing. Another person has been rescued.
The central beam of the 533m-long reinforced concrete bridge fell at around 2.40pm, according to Brazil’s National Department of Transport Infrastructure. Officials have not yet identified a cause.
The two-lane bridge carries the BR-226 road over the Tocantins River to connect the communities of Aguiarnopolis and Estreito. The structure dates from the 1960s.
A local city official, Elias Junior, said on social media that he was shooting a video of the bridge’s condition at the time and happened to catch part of the collapse. The video appears to show a smaller failure near one end of the bridge, and then dust can be seen rising in the distance.
Engineers from the National Department for Transport Infrastructure are checking the remaining parts of the bridge to see if they are also at risk of collapse.
Firefighters said they had to halt the search on the water on Dec. 23 because of a suspected sulfuric acid leak from a tanker truck that fell into the river during the collapse. They also warned people downstream to avoid the water. Reuters reported that two trucks, a car and a motorcycle fell in the collapse.
