vlad.tribnet.com / Issue #601 / Crime watch / Reading article...

Two days prior to the New Year celebrations, unknown persons dismantled an automobile bridge in Khabarovsk, presumably to profit from selling its metal parts to local scrap metal dealers.

The steel bridge stretched for 12 meters over a ravine and was part of the highway leading from Khabarovsk to a town of Topolevo, local news reports said.

The criminal scrap metal collectors most likely were interested in four steel pipes which served as the foundation for the bridge. They dismantled the bridge during the night of December 29 and vanished with its parts in an unknown direction.

Local road service crews are currently reconstructing the bridge, while police have launched a search for the criminals.

This incident became the third such case in 2007 – the two previous bridge thefts occurred in the Ryazan region and the Primorsky region.