Raised stretch of motorway in Philadelphia collapses after fire

Transport officials have warned of extensive delays and street closures and urged drivers to avoid the area.

Early reports suggest the vehicle may have been a tanker but officials could not immediately confirm that.

The fire was reported to be under control.

Video from the scene shows a massive concrete slab has fallen from I-95 on to the road below in northeast Philadelphia.

There were no immediate reports of injuries.

The northbound lanes of I-95 are gone and the southbound lanes are “compromised” due to heat from the fire, said Derek Bowmer, battalion chief of the Philadelphia Fire Department.

Runoff from the fire or perhaps broken gas pipes are causing explosions underground, he added.

Mark Fusetti, a retired Philadelphia police sergeant, said he was driving south toward the city’s airport when he noticed thick plumes of black smoke rising over the motorway.

As he passed the fire, the road beneath began to “dip”, creating a noticeable depression visible in video he took of the scene, he said.

He saw traffic in his rearview mirror come to a halt.

Soon after, the northbound lanes of the motorway crumbled.

“It was crazy timing,” Mr Fusetti said.

“For it to buckle and collapse that quickly, it’s pretty remarkable.”

The impact on traffic was not immediately clear but most drivers travelling the I-95 corridor between Delaware and New York City use the New Jersey Turnpike rather than the segment of interstate where the collapse happened.

Until 2018, drivers did not have a direct motorway connection between I-95 in Pennsylvania and I-95 in New Jersey.

They had to use a few miles of surface roads, with traffic lights, to get from one to the other.

“Today’s going to be a long day. And obviously, with 95 northbound gone and southbound questionable, it’s going to be even longer than that,” said Dominick Mireles, director of Philadelphia’s Office of Emergency Management.

Thousands of tonnes of steel and concrete are piled atop the site of the fire, he said, and heavy construction equipment will be needed to start to remove the debris.

Officials plan to launch a drone to assess the damage.

The fire was strikingly similar to another blaze in Philadelphia in March 1996, when an illegal tyre dump under I-95 caught fire, melting guard rails and buckling the pavement.

The motorway was closed for several weeks and partial closures lasted for six months.

Seven teenagers were charged with arson.

The dump’s owner was sentenced to seven to 14 years in prison and ordered to pay three million (£2.4 million) of the 6.5 million US dollar (£5.2 million) repair costs, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported.

More recently, in Atlanta, a massive fire collapsed an elevated portion of Interstate 85, shutting down the heavily travelled route through the heart of the city in March 2017.

A homeless man was accused of starting the blaze but federal investigators said in a report the state transportation department’s storing of combustible construction materials under the motorway increased the risk of fire.