BAGHDAD – A suicide truck bomb exploded on a major bridge in Baghdad early Thursday, collapsing the steel structure and sending cars toppling into the Tigris River below, police and witnesses said. At least 10 people were killed.
Hospital officials said another 26 were injured, and police were trying to rescue as many as 20 people whose cars plummeted off the al-Sarafiya bridge.
Waves lapped up against twisted girders sinking into the water, as police patrol boats searched for survivors. Scuba divers donned flippers and waded in from the banks of the Tigris, as U.S. helicopters whirred overhead.
Farhan al-Sudani, a 34-year-old Shiite businessman who lives near the bridge, said the blast woke him at dawn.
“A huge explosion shook our house and I thought it would demolish our house. Me and my wife jumped immediately from our bed, grabbed our three kids and took them outside,” he said.
The al-Sarafiya bridge connected two northern Baghdad neighborhoods  Waziriyah, a mostly Sunni enclave, and Utafiyah, a Shiite area.
Police said the attack was by a suicide truck bomber, but Associated Press Television News footage showed the bridge broken apart in two places  perhaps the result of two blasts.
Bombing a major bridge connecting Shi’ite and Sunni neighborhoods? What else is needed to make civil war official?
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