- Title: VIETNAM: Vietnamese president vists bridge collapse victims
- Date: 28th September 2007
- Summary: A DELEGATION FROM THE RED CROSS VISITED PATIENTS AND GAVE THEM GIFTS/A MONK PRESENTED A DONATION MORE PATIENTS BEING TREATED BY A NURSE WIDE SHOT OF RELATIVES WAITING OUTSIDE THE WARD
- Embargoed: 13th October 2007 13:00
- Keywords:
- Topics: Disasters / Accidents / Natural catastrophes
- Reuters ID: LVAAW3Y82YZDYQKUBE95NXYFVFZG
- Story Text: Vietnamese president Nguyen Minh Triet visits the hospital where workers injured in the country's worst bridge collapse are being cared for. At least 60 people died when scaffolding on the bridge crumbled.
Recovery crews found eight more bodies in the rubble of a Vietnamese bridge on Thursday (September 27), taking the death toll from the collapse to around 60, officials said.
As many as 180 people were injured, some of them suffering critical head wounds, when a section of a Japanese-funded bridge that was under construction, collapsed yesterday morning (September 26) in the southern Mekong Delta. Some 250 workers were on site at the time of the accident.
Military doctor Colonel Mai Ninh Nhat said two workers had also died of their injuries on Thursday.
Relatives crowded the military hospital in Can Tho city, which was visited by yellow-garbed Buddhist monks offering sympathies and cash to the victims' families.
Nguyen Thi Chien said her son-in-law Nguyen Van Chien, who was injured in the collapse, had gone to work on the bridge to earn more money.
"He said he should go to build the bridge to earn money as fishing can not make money. His wife is pregnant, about to give birth this month," she said.
The hospital is treating the most serious cases and many of them are unconscious.
President Nguyen Minh Triet visited Can Tho general hospital and the scene of the collapse near the busy Hau River.
He said he shared the pain of the families and asked that agencies care for family members to help them overcome their grief.
The twisted mass of steel, broken concrete and bent scaffolding stood at the height of a five-storey building about 500 metres (550 yards) from the river in Vinh Long.
The reason for the accident was not immediately known, but officials say rains may have softened the foundations, causing scaffolding to collapse and bring down a 90-metre (300-foot) section that was being worked on.
Vietnam is speedily transforming its underdeveloped infrastructure in an attempt to keep pace with a national economy growing at more than eight percent a year. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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