A 15-year-old girl was killed and another person was missing on Monday after a bridge over the river Tarn in southern France collapsed, the local prosecutor said.
The suspension bridge at Mirepoix-sur-Tarn collapsed as a heavy goods vehicle and a family car drove onto it from opposite ends, Toulouse prosecutor Dominique Alzeari said.
The body of the 15-year-old, who had been in the car, was recovered by rescuers. Her mother had managed to swim free and was rescued by bystanders.
Rescuers were searching for the driver of the truck and were also checking to see whether any other vehicles had been involved, although it appeared none were, Alzeari said in a press conference.
Images carried by broadcasters showed the roadway of the bridge broken in at least two places and mostly submerged in the river.
A fire service official told broadcaster BFMTV that about 70 firefighters were at the scene, aided by divers, a dog unit and three helicopters.
The Haute Garonne prefecture said that five people had been hospitalized, including bystanders who came to the aid of the victims and two firefighters.
The area's fire service earlier wrote on Twitter that nine people had been affected by the incident.
The bridge, on a regional road, was 155 metres long and had been built in 1931, France Bleu regional radio reported. It had a 19-ton weight limit.
A report for the French Senate last year, after 43 people were killed in the collapse of a motorway bridge in Genoa in neighbouring Italy, found that at least 25,000 bridges around France were in poor structural condition.
But the mayor of Mirepoix-sur-Tarn, Eric Oget, told BFMTV that the bridge that collapsed had been completely renovated in 2003 and was checked regularly by local authorities.
"It's a catastrophic sight, I don't know what to say, I am dumbstruck," he said.
