The Miami Herald newspaper is reporting that a Jamaican, Navaro Brown, 27, was among those killed in Thursday’s bridge collapse near Florida International University in Miami.
Brown was an employee of a company that provides products to strengthen bridges.
Two other employees of the company, Structural Technologies VSL, were hospitalized at Kendall Regional Medical Center in Miami, where their condition is stable. Brown’s cousin, Appleonia Brown, posted on Facebook that he was from Mocho in the Jamaican central parish of Clarendon.
She described him as a hard-working and humble person.
Over the past weekend rescue crews focused on recovering victims trapped in motor vehicles buried beneath the collapsed bridge that left at least six people dead. On Saturday night, an official from the Miami firefighting department said all the vehicles had been removed and the death rate wasn’t expected to rise.
The concrete bridge fell on SW 8th Street, an eight-lane motorway adjacent to FIU. Ironically, the bridge was being installed to enhance the safety of students crossing the busy road on foot. Last year an FIU student was hit and killed attempting to cross the motorway.
A check by CNW indicated several Jamaican and other Caribbean immigrants employed to road, bridge and building construction projects in South Florida, home to over an estimated 500,000 English and French speaking Caribbean immigrants.
