The overpass collapsed on Thursday, around two kilometers (three miles) from the Mineirao Stadium in Belo Horizonte, where World Cup games are being played.

Television images showed the front of a yellow passenger bus crushed under a large stretch of the fallen highway. Officials said other vehicles were also crushed.

The health agency of the state of Minas Gerais said two people were killed and 19 injured. Fire spokesman Edgard Estevo da Silva said one of the dead was the woman driver of the bus, adding that 13 people were rescued unscathed.

"We were traveling normally and then there was a terrible noise," said Renata Soares, who said she was a passenger on the bus.

"I am sure that more people in other cars were underneath the debris," Soares told Brazil's GloboNews TV.

Da Silva said two trucks belonging to the bridge's construction company were also hit, but no one was inside them.

Unfinished part of Cup roading network

The overpass was part of a network of bus lanes that was supposed to be finished before the World Cup began, but which was not finished on time. The cause of the collapse was not immediately clear.

A worker died last month in Sao Paulo after a 90-tonne beam fell during the construction of a monorail project.

There have been sometimes violent protests in Brazil regarding the government's heavy spending on the World Cup and long delays on infrastructure projects, although unrest has quietened in recent weeks.

The stadium in Belo Horizonte, near to where Thursday's accident occurred, has hosted five World Cup matches and will be the venue of a semi-final next Tuesday.

jr/ipj (Reuters, AFP)