1.
GTV Crowds and ambulances TILT UP collapsed section of motorway
0.06

2.
LV Collapsed motorway.
0.13

3.
MV Debris TILT UP TO cement lorry
0.18

4.
SV Bus crushed under girder (2 shots)
0.24

5.
MV Crushed cars and debris (3 shots)
0.32

6.
LV & SV Collapsed section and fireman (4 shots)
0.48

7.
SCUs Fireman cut through girders (3 shots)
1.02

8.
MV Rescue workers place lifting equipment under girder (3 shots)
1.15

9.
GV Motorway section
1.18

10.
SV Firemen working amongst debris
1.20

11.
SV Fire engine
1.23

12.
SV Concrete lorry and firemen playing water into collapsed section of motorway (2 shots)
1.33

13.
LV Crowd round ambulances (2 shots)
1.49

14.
GTV Crowds and ambulances.
1.57



Initials BB/0207 MD/BOB/BB/0201



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Rescue workers are still battling to save people trapped after a concrete motorway overpass collapsed onto a Rio de Janeiro street on Saturday (20 November) killing an estimated 40 people.

By nightfall on Saturday, 13 bodies had been removed from the crushed vehicles. Television screens flashed appeals for blood donors while hospitals reported that 40 people had been taken in with various injuries.

A 200-yard (metre) stretch of the overpass, still under construction over the central Avenida Paula de Frontin, crashed down on top of a bus and an estimated 18 cars.

SYNOPSIS: In Rio on Saturday a crowd of thousands thronged round ambulances working to save people trapped in the wreckage of a motorway overpass. A bus and an estimated 18 cars were under the 200-yard stretch of concrete when it collapsed. A death toll of forty was predicted.

By nightfall, 13 bodies had been removed from the crushed vehicles--some of which had caught fire shortly after the disaster. Other cars remained flattened in the middle of the multi-lane carriageway.

Gangs of firemen worked frantically to cut their way through girders towards the bus in a bid to reach two passengers believed to be alive. Doctors struggled to free people form the wreckage as television screens flashed appeals for blood donors. Hospitals reported that 40 people had been taken in with serious injuries. Some of them needed to have limbs amputated.

Rescuers used cranes and earth-moving equipment to clear the debris. engineers estimate that about 20,000 tons of concrete had crashed onto the busy Avenida Paula de Frontin when the overpass collapsed at noon. As night foll, huge military searchlights were used to light up the disaster scene and troops were brought in to help with the rescue work. State Governor Chagas Freitas visited the scene and immediately appointed a committee of enquiry.

Women who recognised the bodies of their dead relatives form identity cards and car number plates screamed, hysterically. Eye-witnesses among them said the overpass--still under construction--had collapsed with-a-noise like thunder. The crowd watched throughout the night under a thin drizzle.