Overpass collapse kills two in Brazil World Cup city

[webfact]

Overpass collapse kills two in Brazil World Cup city

BELO HORIZONTE, Brazil - An unfinished overpass being built for the World Cup collapsed in Brazil's southeastern city of Belo Horizonte on Thursday, killing at least two people and injuring 19.

Globo television images showed the front of a yellow bus crushed under a large stretch of the fallen highway, which is about five kilometres (three miles) from the city’s World Cup stadium and was being built as part of delayed infrastructure improvements for the tournament.

"It was like an earthquake. The ground shook violently," Daniel Magalhaes, who was near the site at the time of the accident, told Globo. "I heard a deafening sound. I looked and saw the collapsed overpass."

Two people were killed and 19 injured, the mayor’s office said, lowering an earlier injury toll of 22 injured.

Large-screen public TV broadcasts here of Brazil’s game Friday against Colombia, in another city, Fortaleza, have been cancelled in a gesture of mourning, the mayor’s office said in a statement.

Belo Horizonte is due to host a semi-final match on Tuesday between the winners of the Brazil-Colombia and France-Germany games. The latter is also to be played Friday.

A firefighters’ spokesman said 13 people were rescued from the bus unscathed but the woman driver was killed.

A car was also crushed but it was not immediately known how many people were inside and what their condition was, firefighter spokesman Edgard Estevo da Silva told reporters.
AFP

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/breakingnews/Overpass-collapse-kills-two-in-Brazil-World-Cup-ci-30237719.html


-- The Nation 2014-07-04

[ratcatcher]

Tragic. Lucky more were not fatalities.

[Basil B]

I am surprised some of the stadiums have not collapsed yet...

[thailampang2012]

Just bad luck. The reason for the collapse was a 4.0 earthquake, a rare event in Brazil, and a not completed construction. About Brazil' expertise in construction, the country is #1 in concrete expertise followed with Italy...but..probably many structures were not designed to face earthquakes. Japan is one of the few countries designing and building with that in mind. A big earthquake with an epicenter in most big cities in the world will be an unimaginable tragedy. Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro together, just 4 hours driving apart, holds more than 20 million population.

[Tywais]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntJOp0Nd5VA

[Tywais]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZHtV8Ez8MxY