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“Before we start assigning blame, we need to know what happened,” said Wynne. “We don’t know what caused this, and we need to get to the bottom of that.”

Wynne also said while she didn’t have time to visit the bridge herself, she sent Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca and Northern Development and Mines Minister Michael Gravelle to tour the site on Wednesday and get an update.

One lane of the bridge was reopened to cars and some trucks on Monday, but there has been no estimate as to when the bridge will be fully functional. Nipigon Mayor Richard Harvey describes the bridge as “probably one of the most important transportation infrastructure points in the country.”

About 1,300 trucks cross the Nipigon River Bridge, in Nipigon, Ont., every day, according to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation’s 2012 commercial vehicle survey — amounting to about $100 million in cargo daily.

Cars and most trucks are crossing the bridge about 10 to 15 minutes slower than usual. Oversized trucks, however, remain in limbo. Ministry staff decide on a “case-by-case basis” whether to allow trucks weighing more than 63,500 kilograms over the bridge, said Bob Nichols, a ministry spokesman, in an email.

Truckers lack alternate routes in the area when the bridge is out of service. They could opt to travel through the United States, but that’s become more difficult post 9-11, when the U.S. beefed up security measures at the border.

Officials now consider Canadian cargo passing through to be the same as an international shipment, resulting in paperwork headaches for truckers.