Video shows bridge collapsing into water seconds after people run across it

The structure disappears under the water

A bridge collapses seconds after people cross over it (LiveLeak/YouTube)

Footage has emerged showing the moment three people avoided being cast into a stretch of rushing water as they passed over a bridge in Colombia - just seconds after the structure collapsed.

The one-minute clip shows a bridge which separated two muddy-looking banks on either side of what appears to be a surging river.

People are seen running across the bright yellow structure as an official waves them along.

As the people clear, an enormous crack on one side of the bridge is revealed.

A man is heard shouting that the bridge “kept opening” and that it will collapse in “less than 10 minutes”.

The cameraman then retreats as the bridge comes away from the bank, and crashes into the gushing water below.

A man is the heard exclaiming “It's gone! It’s gone!”

The video was released on YouTube after a powerful storm caused a bridge in Desert Centre, in the Colorado Desert, Calilfornia, to collapse.

In an unrelated incident, flash floods swept through the remote area on the state's 10 Freeway, and resulted in a nearly 50-mile long closure for 5 days, KTLA5 news reported.

Luckily, neither incident was deadly, although bridge collapses in the past have killed many.

In 2001, a pillar on a bridge in Lisbon, Portugal, gave way and killed more than 50 people after a bus tour and two cars plunged into the Douro River.

Some 101 people died in Hanover, Germany, in 1998 after a high-speed train became derailed and caused an overpass to collapse, according to ABC News.