A temporary bridge collapsed onto a New Hampshire highway Wednesday, killing two workers but missing traffic below. And a 16-ton winch plummeted to the bottom of a New York City water tunnel, killing one worker and leaving seven others on precarious perches 350 feet below the surface.
The single-lane temporary bridge, about 90- to 100-feet long, was built to carry traffic while an adjacent highway bridge was resurfaced this summer, said Leon Kenison, chief New Hampshire state highway engineer.The permanent bridge, about 10 miles northwest of Concord, was reopened about three weeks ago. The temporary bridge's deck was removed Tuesday and four workers were taking down steel beams Wednesday, Kenison said.
"They had removed some . . . but the last one they removed caused the whole configuration to go unstable, and over it went," Kenison said.
The structure fell about 20 feet onto a busy local road.
"There is an awful lot of traffic" on Sugar Hill Road below the span in West Hopkinton, said Police Chief Ira Migdal.
The injured man and a fourth worker who was not harmed both jumped clear as the structure fell, police said.
In New York, the winch, used to lower heavy equipment down a 450-foot-deep access shaft into the new water tunnel, became unbalanced and toppled into the opening.
Rescuers lowered into the dark, cold, wet shaft in buckets found the surviving workers about 100 feet from the bottom, clinging to the wall of the shaft or balancing on what remained of a catwalk sheared by the falling winch. The dead man was underwater at the bottom of the shaft beneath the winch. Three of the survivors were hospitalized with broken bones.