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Washington - A key Mississippi River bridge linking the twin cities of Minneapolis and St Paul, Minnesota collapsed Wednesday at the height of the evening rush hour.

 Several spans of the bridge crumbled, and scores of cars were wrecked on the pancaked freeway pavement or submerged in the river.

 The death toll reached seven late Wednesday but was likely to rise overnight, firefighters said. More than 60 people were transported to at least three hospitals.

 "We have concerns that this will be a very tragic night when it is over," Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak said.

 The bridge was undergoing non-structural repaving work this summer, and some lanes of traffic appeared to have been closed at the time of the disaster, possibly reducing the number of cars and casualties. Fire officials said that all but one worker from the construction crews on the bridge had been accounted for by late Wednesday.

 Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty called the bridge collapse a "catastrophe of historic proportions for Minnesota."

   The bridge was built in 1967 and passed state inspections in 2005 and 2006 with some superficial problems but no structural deficiencies, Pawlenty said.

 A schoolbus carrying as many as 60 children was wrecked next to a trailer truck that burst into flames. Reports indicated that all of the children survived, though about a dozen were treated for minor to moderate injuries.

 Kristi Rollwagen, an emergency preparedness official with the city of Minneapolis, said that an estimated 50 vehicles were submerged in the Mississippi. Hundreds of firefighters and other emergency workers were at work overnight, she said.

 Dr Joseph Clinton of the Hennepin County Medical Centre, one of several hospitals near the scene, told broadcasters that his colleagues had seen at least one drowning fatality and were treating six people with critical injuries and at least 22 others with injuries that did not appear life-threatening.

 Most patients had blunt-force injuries including head and trunk injuries, broken limbs and at least one penetrating chest wound, Clinton said.

 Rescue workers used boats to try to reach some parts of the bridge and submerged vehicles, and divers were searching the river.

 The burning truck spewed dark smoke over part of the disaster scene during the first hours, as firefighters used a ladder truck to direct hoses to douse the blazing wreckage.

 Mobile telephone networks were reportedly overloaded in the hours after the disaster, and authorities appealed for people to refrain from making phone calls.

 The local chapter of the American Red Cross appealed for blood donations. The Red Cross office is adjacent to the bridge, and the employee parking lot became a staging area for emergency workers.

 A nearby hotel was designated as a gathering place for families trying to locate people who might have been caught up in the disaster.

 The Interstate 35W bridge is a central connection between the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St Paul. Part of the massive concrete structure over the middle of the river dropped into the water, and other sections appeared to have fallen onto railroad tracks, streets and electric power lines.

 Downriver bridges were being inspected for possible damage from debris from the I-35W collapse.

 The collapse occurred about 6 pm (2200 GMT). Severe thunderstorms were looming on the horizon after nightfall, threatening to complicate overnight rescue and recovery efforts.

 The steel-and-concrete bridge had carried more than 200,000 vehicles a day.

 The bridge is near the University of Minnesota campus, and the local major-league baseball team, the Minnesota Twins, started a game at the nearby Metrodome, an indoor stadium, as scheduled about an hour after the accident.

 City officials said that the crowd leaving the game later Wednesday was being routed away from the disaster scene. Thursday's baseball game was already postponed.

Deutsche Presse Agentur