The incident happened Thursday morning when a group of school children were crossing the temporary construction bridge near a shopping centre in the southern town of Tapiola.
ADVERTISEMENTAccident investigators say a bridge collapse in Finland's second largest city is the first incident of its kind in the Nordic nation.
More than two dozen people, most of whom were 8th grade school pupils, were injured when a temporary pedestrian bridge collapsed in the southern Finnish city of Espoo.
Police said the bridge crossing a construction site in Espoo’s Tapiola neighbourhood collapsed at 09:30 local time. No one was killed, but 27 people were injured, 10 of them seriously.
Espoo lies a few kilometres west of the Finnish capital Helsinki.
"Several people fell a number of metres as the bridge collapsed," police said in a statement.
The students were on their way to visit a nearby modern art museum, from their school in east Helsinki.
Police say the "plywood-based bridge", which was in use as part of a years-long redevelopment of the original 1950s Tapiola town centre, gave way, and that officers were on site within 10 minutes.
Injured pupils were triaged for about 90 minutes at the scene, with the most serious taken to several local hospitals.
Rescue services are conducting a technical investigation in the area, where temporary bridges have been in place over the last decade during the extensive construction project. The bridges have plywood sidings, and plywood walkways covered in metal. Finnish media reports that some local residents have complained the temporary bridges felt unsafe to walk on.
Local authorities said on Thursday that the bridges were given regular inspections, and passed the most recent.
Many of the injured were taken to Helsinki University Hospital, where medical director Eero Hirvensalo said there had been 45 people on the bridge when it gave way, but not everybody fell through to the ground, about five metres below.
Most of the patients taken to hospital were school students born in 2008, although one member of the school staff was also admitted for treatment.
Doctor Hirvensalo told reporters that most of the injuries are to wrists, ankles and thighs, and that everyone who needed surgery was operated on within three hours.
Finnish President Sauli Niinistö tweeted: "Shocking news about an accident in Tapiola. Providing support and help now important."