Workers searched for bodies yesterday after a section of a massive bridge under construction in southern Vietnam collapsed, killing at least 43 people and injuring 87 others.
Nguyen Van Cong, spokesman for Vietnam's transportation ministry, said six bodies were discovered yesterday morning and six people were still missing. All the victims were Vietnamese construction workers.
Hospital officials said the death toll was likely to rise as many of the victims had serious injuries.
In one ward at Can Tho's Military Hospital, three of the 11 patients were in critical condition and several had serious brain injuries.
"We have three patients on respirators and it's very unlikely that they will survive," said Tran Ngoc Vu, a doctor at the hospital.
The only patient in the ward well enough to speak was Nguyen Quoc Trung, 31, who was working on the section of the bridge that collapsed.
"We were working normally and all of a sudden we were flying down," Trung said.
He landed semi-conscious, with his chest stuck between concrete and twisted metal.
"I didn't know if I was in the jungle or the middle of the air," Trung said. "I didn't know where I was."
After two hours, rescue workers pulled him from the wreckage. Two of his friends, who had been working next to him, died in the accident, Trung said.
The cause of the collapse is under investigation.
The Japanese-financed bridge will cross the Hau River, a branch of the Mekong River, linking Vinh Long Province and Can Tho, the largest city in the Mekong Delta. Thousands of people currently make the crossing each day by ferry.
The 100m section of the bridge that collapsed was above a small island on the Vinh Long side of the bridge, just beyond the ramp that connects the span to land.
Large chunks of concrete and mangled steel dangled from the three pylons that held up the buckled span and three cranes moved about the area, hoisting large chunks of debris.
A stretcher lay on the ground and rescue workers and family members crowded the area.
Emergency workers assisted one elderly woman who had collapsed on the ground, apparently overcome by stress.
The 2.75km bridge is one of the largest construction projects in Vietnam. The construction work is being done by a consortium of three Japanese firms -- Taisei Corp, Kajima Corp and Nippon Steel Corp. A fourth Japanese firm, Nippon Koei-Chodai, is the chief consultant on the US$218 million project.
The team behind the long-awaited Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile yesterday published their first images, revealing breathtaking views of star-forming regions as well as distant galaxies. More than two decades in the making, the giant US-funded telescope sits perched at the summit of Cerro Pachon in central Chile, where dark skies and dry air provide ideal conditions for observing the cosmos. One of the debut images is a composite of 678 exposures taken over just seven hours, capturing the Trifid Nebula and the Lagoon Nebula — both several thousand light-years from Earth — glowing in vivid pinks against orange-red backdrops. The new image
Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump. The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa. “While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the
ESPIONAGE: The British government’s decision on the proposed embassy hinges on the security of underground data cables, a former diplomat has said A US intervention over China’s proposed new embassy in London has thrown a potential resolution “up in the air,” campaigners have said, amid concerns over the site’s proximity to a sensitive hub of critical communication cables. The furor over a new “super-embassy” on the edge of London’s financial district was reignited last week when the White House said it was “deeply concerned” over potential Chinese access to “the sensitive communications of one of our closest allies.” The Dutch parliament has also raised concerns about Beijing’s ideal location of Royal Mint Court, on the edge of the City of London, which has so
With a monthly pension barely sufficient to buy 15 eggs or a small bag of rice, Cuba’s elderly people struggle to make ends meet in one of Latin America’s poorest and fastest-aging countries. As the communist island battles its deepest economic crisis in three decades, the state is finding it increasingly hard to care for about 2.4 million inhabitants — more than one-quarter of the population — aged 60 and older. Sixty is the age at which women — for men it is 65 — qualify for the state pension, which starts at 1,528 pesos per month. That is less than US$13