Watch: Burning truck brings down bridge on busy US highway

An overpass on one of the busiest highways in the USA collapsed on Sunday in Philadelphia as a tanker truck burst into flames under the bridge, according to local media reports.

The collapse took out four traffic lanes along an elevated section of heavily travelled Interstate 95, though no injuries were immediately reported, according to an AFP report.

“Companies arrived on location and they found… heavy fire from a vehicle — we don’t know what type of vehicle it was,” Derrick Bowmer, of the Philadelphia Fire Department, told a news conference.

Federal and local law enforcement are looking for the driver, whose whereabouts are unknown.

The north-south highway — one of the busiest in the United States, connecting major cities along the East Coast from Maine to Florida — remains closed in both directions in the Philadelphia area, officials said.

Rebuilding the section of destroyed highway could take weeks.

Television news channels showed flames and billowing smoke coming from the crumbled section of I-95 in the northeastern city’s Tacony neighborhood, with parts of the elevated roadway having fallen onto the lanes below.

The southbound lanes of the highway, while still standing, are “compromised,” Bowmer said. “They got a lot of heat and heavy fire.”

“I-95 will be impacted for a long time,” city Managing Director Tumar Alexander told a news conference, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer.