Fire From Crash Melts Freeway In California
OAKLAND, Calif. — A heavily traveled section of freeway that funnels traffic off the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge collapsed early yesterday after a gasoline tanker truck overturned and erupted into flames, authorities said.
Justin Sullivan / Getty
Cars pass by a section of California Interstate 580 after it collapsed from the heat of a tanker truck explosion yesterday.
Flames shot 200 feet in the air and the heat was intense enough to melt part of the freeway and cause the collapse, but the truck's driver walked away from the scene with second-degree burns.
"I've never seen anything like it," Officer Trent Cross of the California Highway Patrol said. "I'm looking at this thinking, ‘Wow, no one died — that's amazing. It's just very fortunate.'"
Authorities said the damage could take months to repair and that it would cause the worst disruption for Bay Area commuters since the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake damaged a section of the Bay Bridge itself.
