Crowded footbridge breaks over Indonesian river, killing 7

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A footbridge on Indonesia’s Sumatra island broke while it modified into packed with folks and several fell into the overflowing river beneath and drowned, officials acknowledged Monday.

Seven our bodies maintain been pulled from the water as far as 12 kilometers (7.4 miles) from the bridge that broke Sunday afternoon in Kaur district of Bengkulu province.

Rescuers are searching for 3 others, between 14 and 17 years light, mute missing and feared tiresome, acknowledged Ujang Syafiri, who heads a local effort mitigation agency.

About 30 folks, most of them teenagers, had honest correct returned from a tour at a nearby hydropower plant and stopped on the footbridge to employ photos of the coarse spin of the river.

“It modified into it sounds as if (past) its ability. Some teenagers even had rocked the bridge while joking,” Syafiri acknowledged.

He acknowledged about 20 survivors had been rescued, many of them with minor injuries.

Photos launched by the agency showed rescuers the declare of an inflatable boat while they sought for victims shut to the broken bridge and villagers the declare of bamboo and attire to raise a body.

Seasonal rains in most modern weeks maintain precipitated extreme flooding and landslides in Indonesia. A quantity of the nation’s nearly 270 million folks dwell in mountainous areas inclined to landslides or plains shut to rivers that flood on a ordinary basis. The archipelago of 17,000 islands also has frequent seismic and volcanic job.

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This chronicle has been revised to display veil the bridge broke on Sunday, no longer Saturday.