Video taken on the dash cam of a car as it approached Miami‘s Florida International University bridge captured the exact moment it fell down upon traffic, killing six and injuring 10 others.
Warning: The video below contains graphic content.
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The video shows a man working on the top left corner of the bridge as cars passed beneath it. The man was thrown into the air and then fell among the rubble as the bridge suddenly collapsed.
It’s not clear if the man in the video is Structural Technologies VSL employee, who was working at the site and was among the six killed.
The footage also reveals stunned motorists and passengers exiting their vehicles to rush to help after the collapse.
An official cause for the collapse has not yet been declared, but the bridge was over budget and behind schedule due to a design change that caused a main support tower to be moved.
Documents obtained by the Associated Press show that the Florida Department of Transportation in October 2016 ordered Florida International University and its contractors to move one of the bridge’s main support structures 11 feet north to the edge of a canal, which widened the gap between the crossing’s end supports and required some new structural design.
Engineers were also examining a crack in one side of the bridge. Officials previously said they knew of the crack in the bridge but believed it was not a safety concern.
The bridge collapsed Thursday while a stress test was being performed to assess its strength.
While the redesign involved the shifting of a tower, officials have been hesitant to blame the failure of the span on one thing along, and instead suggested that there were many reasons.
Henry Petroski, a Duke University civil engineering professor, told the Associated Press even seemingly minor changes in a bridge’s design can lead to failures.
“Once a design is completed, subsequent modifications tend to be suggested and approved without the full care that went into the original design. This has happened time and again in bridges and other engineering structures,” he said.
The project was already running $2.6 million over its $9.4 million budget, and the finish date had been pushed back to January 2019 from July 2018.
According to a FIU statement, FIGG’s engineer “concluded there were no safety concerns and the crack did not compromise the structural integrity of the bridge.”
The bridge’s signature 109-foot-tall pylon was to be built atop a base at the northern end of the span. In addition to basic support, its design would also contribute to the aesthetics of the bridge, which was touted as an architectural marvel. The bridge would have spanned a busy road and canal to connect the quickly-growing university to the nearby community of Sweetwater.
Designers wrote in their 2015 proposal that it provided “spectacular views” for both pedestrians and drivers passing beneath it.
Among the people killed was Alexa Duran, who was driving her car at the time of the collapse. Friend Richie Humble, who was in the passenger’s seat, narrowly escaped the vehicle after it collapsed and killed Duran.
“I looked up, and in an instant, the bridge was collapsing on us completely. It was too quick to do anything about it,” Humble told the AP.
