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Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse: Looking back on the tragedy 39 years later

A freighter ship hit the bridge during a heavy rainstorm on May 9, 1980.

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — Thursday marks 39 years since the deadly Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse.

A freighter ship hit the bridge during a heavy rainstorm on May 9, 1980, sending several cars and a Greyhound bus into the waters of Tampa Bay below.

A memorial on the Pinellas County side of the bridge remembers the 35 victims killed in the collapse. Twenty-three of the people killed were aboard a bus that toppled into the water.

In 1993, crews demolished the old bridge, which was deemed unfixable. Construction on the new Sunshine Skyway Bridge began in 1982.

Related: Mother recalls losing her son in the Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse

Since then, thousands of runners in the inaugural Skyway 10K in March 2018 and the second Skyway 10K this past March.

March 2018 marked the first race on the new bridge since it opened in 1987.

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