https://www.timesunion.com/news/education/article/Officials-say-crews-removed-2-vehicles-from-under-12761062.php
The Latest: Police say all victims found in bridge collapse
Updated 11:24 pm, Saturday, March 17, 2018
Relatives and friends of people who are missing after a pedestrian bridge collapsed on a highway gathered Friday in South Florida, praying and hoping for miracles as authorities searched the smashed concrete that has already claimed six lives. (March 16)
Media: Associated PressMIAMI (AP) — The Latest on the deadly pedestrian bridge collapse in Miami (all times local):
10:40 p.m.
Police in Miami say they believe they have recovered all the bodies of victims in a catastrophic bridge collapse on a busy highway.
Juan Perez, Miami-Dade police chief, told news media late Saturday night that they had recovered all five bodies of people in vehicles crushed under the pedestrian bridge at Florida International University that collapsed Thursday. A sixth person died at the hospital.
While police believed all victims had been accounted for, they nevertheless said the search and rescue is continuing.
Three victims were found Saturday morning in two vehicles. A third vehicle was pulled from the debris later in the day, but police did not initially say whether they had found human remains inside.
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8:55 p.m.
A Florida university plans to hold a moment of silence Monday for the people who died when a pedestrian bridge collapsed on a busy Miami highway.
In an emailed statement Saturday night, Florida International University President Mark B. Rosenberg said it will be held at 1:47 p.m. That's the same time that the university's bridge under construction collapsed Thursday. Rosenberg called it a first step in healing the community.
He said "Our hearts break for the victims of the bridge collapse," and said the university is working with the National Transportation Safety Board and others to get to the bottom of what happened.
Authorities say at least six people were killed when the structure fell onto a busy six-lane road connecting the campus to the community of Sweetwater.
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6:20 p.m.
Miami-Dade police say a third vehicle has been pulled from the wreckage of a collapsed pedestrian bridge.
The police department said Saturday evening on Twitter that it would be taken to the Miami-Dade County Medical Examiner's Department. Police did not say whether remains were found in the vehicle, but asked people to "keep all affected families and victims in your thoughts and prayers as we continue in our recovery efforts."
Earlier in the day, they removed two vehicles and three bodies in the wreckage of the bridge.
The pedestrian walkway at Florida International University collapsed Thursday afternoon onto a busy highway, killing at least six people.
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4 p.m.
Miami-Dade Police are releasing the names of three victims pulled from the rubble of a Miami bridge that collapsed two days earlier.
The three were found Saturday in vehicles that were removed from the debris of the pedestrian bridge that fell Thursday at Florida International University.
They are 57-year-old Oswald Gonzalez, 53-year-old Alberto Arias and 60-year-old Rolando Fraga Hernandez, 60. Police also released the identity of victim Navarro Brown, who died at a hospital shortly after the accident.
The bridge was under construction when it collapsed onto a major highway, killing at least six people. Authorities say at least four more vehicles remain entangled in the rubble.
Investigators are still trying to determine why the bridge failed.
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12:30 p.m.
Officials say two cars have been removed from under the rubble of a collapsed pedestrian walkway at Florida International University in Miami.
Miami-Dade Fire Rescue Chief Arthur Holmes Jr. says crews won't leave until all the vehicles that were trapped under the bridge are retrieved. Police said the first two vehicles were removed Saturday.
The bridge collapsed Thursday, killing at least six people.
Miami-Dade Police Director Juan Perez says DNA may be needed to confirm some victims' identities, along with fingerprints and family photographs. He said the process of recovering the remaining cars was arduous.
"Right now we're just chipping away," he said at a news conference Saturday.
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Florida officials say two days before a catastrophic bridge collapse in Miami, an engineer left a voicemail saying some cracking had been found at one end of the span.
However, the voicemail to the Florida Department of Transportation wasn't picked up until after the collapse. The engineer said in the call he didn't believe the cracking posed a safety issue.
Federal transportation safety officials said Friday night that don't know if any cracking was related to the collapse.
The pedestrian bridge at Florida International university collapsed Thursday, killing at least six people. Authorities are slowly removing the debris, looking for more victims.
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This story has been corrected to show that the Miami-Dade police chief's last name is Perez.
