Two bodies have been found at the site of a Baltimore bridge where a cargo ship collided with one of the bridge’s supports and collapsed into the river early Tuesday, police said.
A 35-year-old man and a 26-year-old man were found Wednesday in the Patapsco River near the halfway point of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, Superintendent Col. Roland L. Butler Jr. said. For Maryland State Police.
Crews are continuing to search for four more people who are presumed dead.
Federal safety investigators recovered a black box from the cargo ship early Wednesday. Highways teams will also examine the twisted remains of the 2.6km bridge in a bid to determine how and why the container ship crashed into the bridge’s pillars in the darkness early Tuesday morning.
NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board recovered the data recorder after boarding the ship late Tuesday. They will interview the ship’s crew, she said.
Homendy said the Singapore-flagged container ship Dali had one of the new data recorders and authorities were trying to collect information including “the ship’s location, the ship itself, its speed, etc.” Ta.
“It’s going to take a while,” she said. “It may take five to 10 days to be on site.”
Experienced ship captain Alain Arsenault explains why a giant container ship crashed and destroyed a major bridge in Baltimore, temporarily closing one of America’s largest ports.
Homendy said a fact-based preliminary report is typically available in two to four weeks, but an NTSB investigation report with analysis and recommendations can take 12 to 24 months.
The disaster resulted in an indefinite closure of shipping traffic at the Port of Baltimore, the busiest port on the U.S. East Coast, and created a quagmire of traffic conditions in Baltimore and surrounding areas.
Rescue teams pulled two construction workers alive from the sea on Tuesday. One person was hospitalized. The six people presumed dead included immigrants from Central America.
National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told media Wednesday that the investigation team will not only speak to witnesses but also review data from the ship’s recorder to build a “comprehensive timeline” of the accident. He said he would investigate.
Maryland Gov. West Moore said Wednesday that divers in the water face dangerous conditions.
“They’re in the dark and can literally only see about a foot in front of them. They’re trying to climb over shattered metal and are now in areas where people are presumed to have lost their lives.” .
First casualty confirmed
The Guatemalan Consulate General in Maryland confirmed that two of the missing people were Guatemalan nationals who were working on the bridge. Mexico’s consulate general in Washington also confirmed in a statement published in X that Mexican nationals were among the missing, but did not say how many.
The Honduran man was identified by the country’s deputy foreign minister as Sandoba Mayor Yasir Suazo.
Officials said the eight people were part of a crew repairing a hole in the road when the Dali, heading from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, crashed into a pole.
The U.S. Coast Guard said it was searching for the bodies 18 hours after they were thrown from a bridge into the frigid waters of the Patapsco River estuary.
Divers resumed their search in the 50-foot-deep waters surrounding the twisted ruins.
“We do not believe these individuals will be found alive,” Coast Guard Maj. Gen. Shannon Gilreath told a news conference.
The 289-meter-long ship reported a loss of propulsion shortly before the collision and dropped anchor to slow the ship, giving transportation officials time to halt traffic on the bridge before the collision. The measure likely would have prevented the death toll from rising, authorities said.
It is also unclear whether authorities tried to warn the workers before the crash.
Moore said at a news conference Tuesday that the bridge is in good condition with no known structural issues. Law enforcement officials at the state and federal level said there was no evidence of intent in the crash.
Maryland Gov. Wes Moore praised search and rescue teams who resumed work around the collapsed bridge early Wednesday morning. Moore said investigators will look into what happened when the cargo ship hit the critical bridge, as well as the immediate response and aftermath.
Exact impact on supply chain unclear
An inspection of the ship in Chile last year found defects in its “propulsion system and auxiliary machinery,” according to data from Equasis, a public website that provides information about the ship.
However, the Singapore Maritime and Port Authority said in a statement that the ship had passed two foreign port inspections in June and September 2023. The ship said that after an inspection in June 2023, the fault in its fuel pressure gauge was corrected before leaving port.
Following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, some experts are questioning whether Canada’s infrastructure can withstand such a catastrophic container ship crash.
Video footage on social media showed the ship crashing into the 47-year-old Quay Bridge in the dark, with vehicle headlights visible on the bridge as it hit the water and burst into flames.
All 22 crew members of the vessel, owned by Grace Ocean, were blamed, its management company, Synergy Marine, reported.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the port closures would have “significant and long-lasting impacts on supply chains.” The Port of Baltimore handles more motor vehicle cargo than any other U.S. port, with more than 750,000 vehicles handled in 2022, as well as containerized cargo ranging from sugar to coal, according to port data. We also handle bulk cargo.
Still, economists and logistics experts doubt that the port closure will cause a supply chain crisis in the U.S. and a significant spike in commodity prices, as rival ports along the East Coast have sufficient shipping capacity. He said there was.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott said the focus now is on rescuing those missing in the bridge collapse.
