At least six people were hurt when a truck slammed into a pedestrian bridge in Washington, DC, and sent it crashing onto a freeway shortly before noon Wednesday, officials said.
The collapse of the bridge at Kenilworth Avenue and Polk Street trapped several vehicles under the rubble, including a truck that began leaking fuel, WZDC-TV reported.
The truckcontained 500 pounds of fuel — about 25 gallons of it spilling into nearby drains and prompting a response from a hazardous materials team.
At least one vehicle was struck by debris, DC fire and EMS officials said on Twitter.
“The truck was coming through and what happened was the truck just came through and it must have tilted or hit the side of the bridge or whatever and the bridge just came on down,” one eyewitness told WUSA-TV reporter Matthew Torres.
“I didn’t know it was that light, that it just hit it and just like that, for a tap, for it to happen that way,” she said. “The sound was like, BOOM!, like a boom. It just crashed down.”
At least five of the injured were taken to area hospitals and the others were treated at the scene, Deputy Mayor Chris Geldart said at a briefing.
None of the victims have life-threatening injuries, he said.
“We do believe that it’s caused by the collision,” Geldart said at the scene. “These are all preliminary findings right now but everything we see at the accident scene leads to this being a collision pulling the bridge off its moorings.”
DC Mayor Muriel Bowser said the bridge was last inspected in February and was deemed to be structurally sound.
“We don’t have any structural concerns about the bridge,” Bowser said.
Officials said it might take until tomorrow for the debris to be cleared.
Firefighters determined that no motorists remained in the heap of cars and debris.
The collapse halted traffic for miles in both directions on the busy Interstate 295 freeway, the report said.
Emergency personnel remain at the scene.