A section of an elevated bicycle path built as part of improvements for the Rio Olympics collapsed after a powerful wave crashed into it today, killing two people.
Scuba divers were looking for a possible third victim in the ocean after the structure fell along its seaside path over a sheer cliff, said Pedro Paulo, a senior official in the mayor's office.
Rescuers brought the bodies of two men onto a crowded beach. A woman wept over one of the bodies. Three other people were found alive.
Paulo said authorities were investigating the cause of the accident but that a "strong" wave had struck the lane, which is held up by pillars, beforehand.
"The first possibility is that the force of the wave coming from below up lifted the (bike lane) and then the path fell," he told reporters.
A witness told Globo television that he had just biked across the path when a big wave appeared.
"It hit the (sea) wall and it went up four to five meters. We saw five people who were also biking fall. The sea was very strong today," Damian Pinheiro de Araujo, a 60-year-old retiree, told the network.
Waves were still crashing on the cliff where the 50-meter (50-yard) long section of the bicycle path fell. The $12.6 million lane was inaugurated in January.
The four-kilometer (2.5-mile) lane links the ritzy beach neighborhoods of Leblon with Sao Conrado. The path was built as a city upgrade and tourist attraction ahead of the Olympics in August.
