A rescue team on Friday recovered a pickup truck with two dead
bodies inside from the Pearl River, where a bridge collapsed a week
ago leaving four vehicles and seven people missing.
One of the dead bodies in the truck appeared to be female, said
sources with the salvage company in Foshan, south China's Guangdong Province.
The truck was retrieved at 9:40 AM and has been transported to
local traffic police station to be identified whether it is one of
the four vehicles missing after the bridge collapse.
The company gave no details about the truck and local police are
unavailable for comment.
Earlier this week, rescuers found seven bodies, including five
men and two women, but forensic examinations showed three of them
were not victims of the bridge collapse.
The other four bodies are still being identified and some family
DNA samples were collected on Tuesday for analysis and
confirmation, according to a government spokeswoman.
A seven-ton, 9,000-watt electromagnet with a magnetic force of
30 tons has been used to try to pull out the missing vehicles.
The salvage operation has been difficult as an official from the
Guangdong Maritime Affairs Bureau explained the vehicles could have
been swept downstream by the swift-flowing water. Rescuers have
expanded the search region to eight kilometers downstream from the
collapsed bridge.
A boat laden with sand steamed out of the main river channel
about 5:10 AM last Friday and hit a pillar of a bridge connecting
Jiujiang Town in Nanhai District of Foshan City to neighboring
Heshan City, causing 200 meters of the 1,600-meter-long bridge to
collapse.
Sections of the collapsed bridge fell onto the bow of the boat,
partially submerging it. All 10 crew members were rescued, and two
were treated in hospital for bruises and discharged.
Six crew members, including the captain, have been detained by
maritime police.
(Xinhua News Agency June 22, 2007)