Collapse of the Quebec Bridge
A section of the new bridge being constructed across the St. Lawrence River, five miles below Quebec, collapsed just as the men were quitting work for the day on August 29. It is estimated that from sixty to one hundred persons were killed by the accident. Without any previous warning the great steel structure began to collapse, and carried its builders, with only a few exceptions, into the waters below. Of those who were on the section of the bridge that fell, not a single one came to the surface. The bridge when completed is to be the longest single-span cantilever bridge in the world, being some eighteen hundred feet longer than the famous Forth Bridge which holds the record of length for one span. Its construction was commenced in 1900, and was to have been finished in 1909.