London's Millennium Bridge to close

The newly built Millennium Bridge over the River Thames in central London is to close this evening so that engineers can work out why it wobbles.

The suspension footbridge first opened to the public on Saturday.

But strong winds and thousands of people caused it to sway from side to side.

The trustees of the bridge say it will close until it is entirely safe.

They haven't said when it will re-open.

It's not the first Millennium monument in London to go wrong.

The government has given millions of pounds of extra funding to the Millennium Dome a giant exhibition in south-east London to keep it going in the face of poor public attendance figures, while the London Eye - a huge ferris wheel overlooking the Houses of Parliament - opened more than a month late. The Millennium Bridge crosses the Thames between St Paul's Cathedral and the city's new modern art gallery.

It's the first new bridge in London since Tower Bridge was built in 1896.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service