Minneapolis ? More than 100 cars and trucks and a school bus crawling bumper-to-bumper on a bridge that suddenly crashed into the Mississippi River seemed like a recipe for a massive death count.

But on Friday came what this city’s fire chief called a miraculous turn of events: the prospect that relatively few lives were lost.

Divers still searched through the swirling, muddy currents for cars and bodies. However, the official death toll remained at five from Wednesday’s collapse, and authorities cast doubt on an earlier estimate that as many as 30 people were missing. They said it could even be as few as eight.

Of the roughly 100 injured, 28 remain hospitalized, and only five were critical.

“We were surprised that we didn’t have more people seriously injured and killed,” Fire Chief Jim Clack said. “I think it was something of a miracle.”

Clack cited a list of reasons: a bridge design that minimized falling debris, a quick response by rescue crews and the rush-hour crawl that gave vehicles little momentum to plunge into the river.

In addition, experts say the speed and depth of the water in the Mississippi River were much lower than normal on the day of the collapse – largely the result of a drought. That may have made it easier for people to escape the disaster.

“It’s a horrible, tragic event. But it could have been a hell of a lot worse,” said Kent Harries, assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering in the University of Pittsburgh’s School of Engineering.

Minnesota officials say they don’t yet know how many cars were traveling the span during the collapse. But judging by the length of road, the lanes that were open, time of day and widely accepted traffic formulas, Northwestern University engineering professor Joseph Schofer estimated that between 100 and 150 vehicles were on the bridge.

Despite the low death toll, divers were still contending with a treacherous combination of sunken cars, broken cliffs of concrete and jagged rebar as they searched for bodies.

Firefighters pulled the fifth victim from the wreckage late Thursday. Early in the day, authorities said as few as eight people were still missing. However, they cautioned later that number could rise, in part because there was no way to know how many victims were in the water.