An oil_carrying barge crashed into a bridge in Texas_ USA

Houston, May 15 (Reporter Xu Jianmei) The municipal authority of Galveston, an island city in eastern Texas, said on the 15th that a barge hit a local bridge that day, causing a fuel leak and damage to the bridge.

The bridge involved was the only land route to Pelican Island north of Galveston. David Flores, head of bridge affairs for the Galveston County Navigation District, said that due to strong water and high waves, a tugboat from Texas International Port lost control of two refueling barges it was driving, one of which hit the bridge pillar.

Aerial footage showed that part of the bridge pillars collapsed, and large pieces of broken concrete and rail fragments hung on one side of the bridge and fell onto the barge.

After the accident, the bridge, which was opened in 1960, was closed. Galveston City Authority said in a statement that no injuries had been reported. The accident caused a fuel leak in the Gulf of Mexico, and the U.S. Coast Guard will determine the extent of the leak and initiate control and cleanup procedures.

Galveston County spokesman Spencer Lewis said the barge could carry 30,000 gallons of oil (about 113.55 million liters). It was unclear how much leaked into the bay. About 105 kilometers of waterways around the incident were closed.

Texas A & M University at Galveston on Pelican Island said the accident caused a brief power outage at the school and power has now been restored.

According to US media reports, American ship collisions with bridges have occurred frequently in the past few months. On March 26, a container cargo ship crashed into a bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, in the eastern United States and collapsed, killing six people. On April 12 and 13 on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 26 inland river barges separated from their moorings due to floods and drifted uncontrollably, when one hit a bridge that had been closed. On May 9, a large barge broke loose from a tugboat on the Mississippi River flowing through Iowa and sank after hitting the nearly century-old Fort Madison Bridge.