UPDATE: Allah makes an important point: Watching the video, you can see the traffic wasn’t bumper-to-bumper. Unfortunately, the recovery effort was stopped overnight, and will continue today. People are missing, and it’s known that about 34 vehicles plunged into the water.
One of the six critical patients who were being treated last night, died, according to CNN. There are still 5 people in critical condition.
Recovery efforts restarted about a half-hour ago.
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UPDATE: News conference with officials is on right now. They confirm, again, this is now a recovery effort. The St. Paul police department answered 911 calls throughout the night.
The Police say at least 6 families are actually at the center looking for family members, with other calling in. The 20-30 people estimated to be unaccounted for, is based upon an estimate of how many vehicles were on the bridge at the time, so it’s not a solid figure.
5 children were treated at a local hospital.
There is still a major concern about the structural integrity of the still-standing sections.
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Fox News is reporting that Minneapolis Police are saying only four people can be confirmed death right now – not the 7 or 9 reported by the wires earlier. However, that doesn’t mean it don’t go up. Recovery efforts stopped last night, and continue this morning.
We now have the security camera footage of the collapse, if you haven’t seen it:
by Stephan Tawney on Thu, Aug 2, 2007