Hong Kong (CNN) -- A truck carrying fireworks on an expressway bridge in central China exploded Friday, causing part of the bridge to collapse and sending dozens of vehicles plunging off the edge, authorities said.

The exact number of casualties wasn't immediately clear. Highway police in Henan province, where the explosion happened, said on their official microblog account that at least 11 people had been killed.

But that post was later deleted and replaced with one that gave the lower total being reported by Xinhua, the official state news agency. By late Friday afternoon, Xinhua was citing local authorities as saying that eight people had been killed.

The state-run China National Radio had earlier reported on its website that as many as 26 people had died in the disaster. It didn't say where it got the information from.

Authorities have closed the expressway while search and rescue efforts are under way, Xinhua reported, and 13 injured people have been retrieved from the wreckage so far.

At least 25 vehicles are believed to have fallen off the bridge to the ground about 30 meters (100 feet) below, Xinhua said.

State broadcaster CCTV carried footage of a yawning gap in one part of the bridge, with mounds of debris, including rubble and parts of vehicles, spread out below

Rescue workers in bright orange overalls clambered over upturned trucks, looking for survivors.

Xinhua said an 80-meter (260-foot) stretch of the bridge had collapsed after the explosion, which occurred at 8:52 a.m. local time in Mianchi County.

China's fireworks tradition

Fireworks are an enduring element of celebrations of the Lunar New Year in China, one of the country's most important holidays that takes place this month. But they have been at the root of accidents in the past.

In 2009, fireworks set off a huge fire that gutted a brand-new hotel in central Beijing, briefly prompting calls for the return of a ban put in place at the height of Chairman Mao Zedong's rule in the 1970s.

According to local folklore, fireworks drive away monsters and evil spirits. But under Mao they were prohibited, ostensibly on the basis that they were "bourgeois" and a "waste of money."

Beijing authorities on Friday urged residents to set off fewer fireworks during this year's Lunar New Year celebrations to avoid exacerbating the thick pollution that has cloaked the capital for much of the past month, Xinhua reported.

Pentagon laying off 46,000 employees

By Barbara Starr, CNN

January 25, 2013 -- Updated 2242 GMT (0642 HKT)

Washington (CNN) -- The Pentagon has begun laying off 46,000 contract and temporary civilian employees in an effort to cut back on military spending, the No. 2 Pentagon official said on Friday.

Full time civilian employees, which number in the hundreds of thousands, also will be furloughed for one day a week for 22 weeks, Deputy Defense Secretary Ash Carter said in an interview with wire service reporters.

His comments were confirmed by a Pentagon spokesman.

The moves are part of a Defense Department effort to reduce spending given the potential for billions in mandatory cuts beginning as early as this spring should Congress fail to reach a deal on deficit reduction.

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta ordered military services to begin implementing cost cutting measures to mitigate the risk of the cuts to the military budget should no congressional deal emerge.

Panetta said earlier this month that he had asked services to begin "prudent" measures, which included curtailing maintenance for non-critical activities and delaying hiring.

The measures must be "reversible" and minimize harmful effects on military readiness, Panetta said.

(CNN) -- A California judge has forced the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to release some 12,000 pages of church documents revealing how it handled allegations of priest sexual abuse.

There were many -- 192 priests and bishops were named in litigation, the archdiocese said.

"The cases span decades," Archbishop Jose H. Gomez said in a statement Thursday. Some go back to the 1930s.

"But that does not make them less serious. I find these files to be brutal and painful reading," he said.

Gomez also chastised his predecessor, now retired Cardinal Roger Mahony, for shortcomings after victims came forward during his tenure.

"Effective immediately, I have informed Cardinal Mahony that he will no longer have any administrative or public duties," Gomez said in a statement.

It's a mere slap on the wrist long after the fact, said David Clohessy, director of the Survivors Network of those Abuse by Priests.

"A meaningless gesture. He should have been demoted or disciplined by the church hierarchy, in Rome and in the US," he said.

But Mahony was not as much as denounced when he was in power, Clohessy said.

Mahony "expressed his sorrow" over the alleged abuse, which victims reported during his tenure as archbishop from 1984 - 2011, the archdiocese said Friday.

But Clohessy feels he and other church officials knew too much and did too little, and that there have not been enough consequences to deter future abuse or cover-ups.

"If you successfully conceal your wrongdoing, you can keep your job," he said.

The archdiocese already published the names of accused clergy in a 2004 report, but the release of Thursday's documents will allow the public to trace how the church handled the allegations. It may bring to light some cases where accusations were kept under wraps and the accused were kept out of the sight of the law or accusers.

The documents had served as evidence in 508 civil cases by sex abuse victims that were settled in one stroke in 2007.

Victims received a total of $660 million in the landmark judgment.

Most of the documents were inner-church correspondences about accused clergy. The archdiocese fought to purge the names of the accused from the papers until Thursday, when Judge Emilie Elias ruled that they be made public by February 22.

The church published them shortly after the ruling. There are 124 personnel files in total, 82 which reveal sex abuse allegations against minors.

The release "concludes a sad and shameful chapter in the history of our Local Church," the archdiocese said.

It warned that although the names of the abused have been deleted, some may recognize their cases.

"We understand this experience may be a difficult one," it said.