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.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of £0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan