• Italy.An expert on the tragedy of Genoa: "The Morandi Bridge is a failure of engineering"

At least one person died on Monday after the collapse of a suspension bridge over the Tarn river north of Toulouse (southern France), the Prefect of the department of Upper Garonne announced. The accident took place around 8:30 in the morning (local time) in the town of Mirepoix-sur-Tarn.

As a result of the collapse of the bridge, at least one car and one truck fell into the river. The local newspaper La Dépêche du Midi says that a school bus had passed shortly before the bridge collapsed. The departmental road D71 has been cut off to traffic after the accident.

According to the provisional balance of firefighters, there are at least nine victims of the accident, of which two are in very serious condition and four have been located on the banks of the Tarn River , a tributary of the Garonne River. According to witness testimonies, a truck and van crossed the bridge at the time of the accident. "I don't know how many people we look for. According to the testimonies, there are several missing persons, potentially the driver of the truck and the driver of the van," said Toulouse prosecutor Karline Bouisset.

The deceased would be a 15-year-old teenager who was traveling with her mother by car. The mother has been rescued alive, according to La Dépêche du Midi.

Police, firefighters, a team of divers and three helicopters moved to the scene of the incident to rescue the victims and assess the magnitude of the tragedy. And they have asked the neighbors to avoid the area to facilitate rescue efforts.

The suspension bridge, which had been renovated in 2003, linked the towns of Mirepoix-sur-Tarn and Bessières. It was 152 meters long and 5 meters wide. The bridge, made of metal and concrete, was built in 1935 after the rise of the Tarn River destroyed the old wooden bridge, according to the website of the Tourist Office of Upper Garonne.

In August 2018, the Morandi bridge in Genoa (Italy), 90 meters high and built in the 50s, collapsed, a tragedy that cost 43 people to life.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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