Europa: Bridge Collapses in Andorra

Rescue teams remove the bodies of construction workers killed when the bridge they were building in the Principality of Andorra collapsed.

Six workers were badly injured and others are believed to be buried under the rubble.

Andorra’s Interior Minister Victor Naudi says rescue work is taking longer than expected.

[Victor Naudi, Andorra Interior Minister]:
„With the worker we have located, the difficulty lies in trying to carry out the initial step of removing or withdrawing the iron that surrounds the person. At first, according to last minute news reports, it wouldn’t take long, but in these cases time is relative. In terms of the second missing person, the important thing is to remove the first person and, through the corridor, go further to visualise the back part and be able to act.“

The accident happened where a main road joined the mouth of the Dos Valires tunnel.

20 meters of the bridge’s concrete structure collapsed Saturday at midday.

Rescue teams worked into the night trying to dig out the buried.

By Sunday morning five workers were reported to be dead.

Work on the Dos Valires tunnel, which links the towns of Encamp and La Massana, is scheduled to finish next year.

Andorra’s authorities have vowed to find out what caused the collapse.

(NTDTV)