Footbridge collapses in Finland, injures 27, mostly children

By Starrys Obazei | May 12, 2023, with agency report.
starrys@ddnewsonline.com

Rescue teams work at the site of an accident in which around 27 people, a majority of them children, were injured on May 11, 2023, in Espoo, Finland, when a pedestrian bridge collapsed

Some 27 young people, most of them children, were injured in Finland on Thursday when a temporary footbridge by a construction site collapsed and they fell several meters onto a road, rescuers said.

“Approximately 27 youths, mostly minors, have been injured, to varying degrees,” the Western Uusimaa rescue department in Espoo, near the capital Helsinki, said in a statement, AFP reports.

The accident happened around 9:20 a.m. (0620 GMT) when wooden planks are believed to have given way and the youths fell to the ground.

Helsinki hospital service HUS said “The injured belonged to a group of schoolchildren” and “the majority of the injuries are limb fractures.”

Twenty-four of the injured have been transported to various hospitals in the region.

“No one has life-threatening injuries,” HUS said in a statement.

Pictures from the scene showed the footbridge largely intact, with a pile of wooden planks laying in a jumble under one end.

Rescue workers could be seen treating multiple people laying injured on the road.