Four people were injured, two of them seriously, when a pedestrian bridge collapsed near Prague zoo on Saturday, rescuers said.

“A 60-year-old man was put in an artificial coma and a 63-year-old woman was also taken to hospital with multiple injuries,” Prague ambulance spokeswoman Jana Postova told AFP.

“We also treated men aged 34 and 43 on the spot with less serious injuries, and we took them to hospital too,” she said, adding that all four had fallen with the bridge as it collapsed around 1:00 pm (1200 GMT).

Built in 1984, the concrete bridge across the Vltava river, in the north of the Czech capital, was 260 metres (850 feet) long and used by pedestrians and cyclists.

Czech media said a city company in charge of Prague’s bridges had complained some time ago that the bridge’s 156 steel ropes were corroded.

AFP