Some 27 people – including several children – have been injured after a temporary footbridge collapsed in the Finnish city of Espoo on Thursday.
Many of those wounded today were school children, the Helsinki Hospital Authority (HUS) said.
They were eighth-grade students from the Kalasatama primary school in Helsinki, principal Kati Pennane told the Finnish news outlet MTV Uutiset.
Some people fell a few metres when the bridge caved, the police said.
A temporary pedestrian bridge in Epsoo, about 12 miles from the capital in the Uusimma region, collapsed at around 9:30am, according to the country’s national broadcaster, the Finnish Broadcasting Company known locally as Yle.
The footbridge, which police said is plywood-based, leads to the Ainoa shopping centre in Itätuulenkuja, a street in the city’s leisure district Tapiola.
It was built while construction is going on in the area.
The Länsi-Uusimaa rescue service said scaffolding collapsed near the construction site. Though police have said their investigations into the cause are ongoing.
HUS said in a separate statement that hospitals received the patients for treatment for ‘limb fractures’ at around 11:10am.
‘There has been no indication of any risk of paralysis but there are some head injuries involved as well,’ HUS medical director Eero Hirvensalo told reporters.
Six patients have been taken to Siltasairaila, six to Jorvi Hospital, three to Peijas Hospital and nine to Uuti Children’s Hospital, HUS added.
