COLLAPSE OF A BRIDGE.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8547, 3 October 1907, Page 3

COLLAPSE OF A BRIDGE.

GREAT LOSS OF LIFE. News was recently received by cable of the collapse of the great bridge across the St. Lawrence River. The American mail to hand by the Foreric gives details of the catastrophe. A message from Quebec, dated August 28th, states: — A section of the new bridge acioss the St. Lawrence River, five miles below this city, collapsed late to-day, carrying scores of bridge workmen and mechanics into the water. It is estimated that the loss of life is at least sixty, and may exceed that number by twenty. The bridge was about a mile and a half in length, and half of it, from the south shore to midstream, crumpled up and dropped into the water. Ninety men were at work in this section of the structure, and the whistle had blown at 5.30 for the men to quit work for the day, when there came a grinding sound from the bridge midstream. The men turned to see what had happened, and an instant later the cry went Up, "The bridge is falling!" The men made a rush shoreward, but the distance was too great for them to escape.

xhe fallen section of the bridge dragged others after it, the snapping girders and cables booming like the crash of artillery. Terror lent fleetness to the feet of the frightened workmen as they sped shoreward, but only a few of them reached safety before the last piece of the ironwork on the south shore was dragged into the river. Near the shore the wreckage of the bridge did not go blelow the surface of the water, and eight workmen who remained above water were rescued and taken to the hospital at Levis. The steamer Glenmont had just cleared the bridge when the first section fell. The water thrown up by the debris came clear over the bridge of the steamer. The captain at once lowered boats. The small boats plied backward and forward over the sunken wreckage for half an hour, but there was no sign of life.

The twisted iron and steel had its victims in a terrible death grip. A few floating timbers and the broken strands of the bridee toward the north shore were the only signs that anything unusual had happened. There was not •$ ripple on the smooth surface of the St Lawrence as it swept along toward the gulf.

All the men drowned were employees of the Phoenixville Bridge Company and sub-contractors of Quebec and Montreal. At 1.0 o'clock tonight sixteen bodies had been picked up, and of the eight men at Levis hospital two are not expected to live through the night. The Quebec bridge was begun about seven years ago, and it was to be finished in 1909. Subsidies had been granted by the Federal and Provincial Governments and the city of Quebec, and the estimated cost of the work was 10,000,000d01. The Phoenixville Bridge Company of Pennsylvania had the contract for the construction of the bridge, and crews were working f com both sides of the river. The Quebec bridge was remarkable in that it was to be the longest single-span cantilever in the world, the length of span in centre being 1,800 feet or 2,000 feet longer than that of Forth bridge, at present the world's longest single-span bridge. There has been no bridge across the St. Lawrence below Montreal. At Quebec traffic was ferried across the river, this expense being held responsible for the failure of Quebec to grow. A number of citizens secured a charter from the Dominion Government to bridge the St. Lawrence River.

Work was begun in 1900. The original estimate of the cost was in the neigbourhood of 3,500,000d01., but this was found to be too small. The company finding itself in difficulty and the Government needing the bridge for the 'national transcontinental railway, an agreement was reached by which the Government agreed to guarantee the bonds •of the company up to 7,U00,000d01. Under this agreement construction had been proceeding. When completed the bridge was to have accommodation for a double■track railway, two lines of electric tramways and two roadways for foot and vehicle traffic. At the time of the collapse the cantilever span on the south side of the river had been completed, as well as the approaching japan and some 200 ft of the connecting span between the cantilevers.