Searchers remove two more bodies from fallen bridge

The remains were found in cars that were pulled from the Mississippi River.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — The discovery of two more sets of human remains amid the wreckage of the interstate bridge that collapsed raised the known death toll to 11 and left only two more victims to be found.

Navy divers continued to work the scene Thursday, as did the construction crew that was using cranes to remove large chunks of bridge debris. A dive team spokesman said the effort was shifting between diving and debris removal.

“The infrastructure of the bridge is creating problems for them to get into areas and locate other vehicles,” spokesman Randy Mitchell said.

The two most recent sets of remains were found in cars that divers got to only after cranes moved debris out of the way, Mitchell said. “They weren’t freely accessible,” he said.

The bodies of Vera Peck, 50, of St. Anthony, and Christina Sacorafas, 45, of White Bear Lake were recovered from two vehicles pulled out of the Mississippi River, the Hennepin County medical examiner’s office said.

Mother, son killed

Peck had been in a car with her 20-year-old son, Richard Chit, when the bridge collapsed. His body was recovered over the weekend.

“Obviously we are in the mourning mode right now,” said David Chit, Peck’s ex-husband.

The Rev. Paul Paris, pastor at the church Sacorafas attended, St. Mary’s Greek Orthodox Church in Minneapolis, said it was a relief that her body had been found. Sacorafas had been driving to church to teach a Greek folk dancing class the evening of the bridge collapse.

“At least they know,” Paris told the St. Paul Pioneer Press. “That’s the big thing. They know.”

The other two people on the list of known missing and presumed dead in the Aug. 1 collapse are Scott Sathers, 29, and Greg Jolstad, 45.

While the two teams of eight divers each have been somewhat limited by the need to rest occasionally, the removal of debris has been happening more or less around-the-clock for the past few days, Mitchell said.

The size of some of the pieces of debris have forced construction crews to at times use torches to cut the chunks into smaller pieces so they’re not too heavy for the crane to lift, Mitchell said.

Once a sizable portion is out of the way, divers will “go in and reassess that spot,” he said.