Hunt for crew missing after bridge collapse

RECOVERY efforts have resumed for six workers who are presumed dead after a cargo ship hit a pillar of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland.

The collision occurred in the early hours of Tuesday after the ship lost its steering capability before it hit a pillar of the US city’s Francis Scott Key Bridge.

Audio from first responders reveals a scramble to halt traffic just before the crash.

The bridge is an important link in the region’s transport infrastructure, and its collapse is expected to snarl commuter traffic and disrupt a vital shipping port for some time.

Within 90 seconds of a dispatcher’s 12-second warning over the radio on Tuesday, police officers responded that they had managed to stop vehicle traffic over the Baltimore bridge.

One said he was about to drive onto the bridge to alert a construction crew but it was too late before the vessel smashed into a support pillar.

“The whole bridge just fell down,” a frantic officer said. “The whole bridge just collapsed.” When the container ship Dali slammed into the pillar at around 1.30am on Tuesday (5.30am GMT), it caused a long span of the bridge, a major link in the region’s transport networks, to crumple into the Patapsco River.

At least eight people went into the water. Two were rescued but the other six, part of a construction crew that had been filling potholes on the bridge, are missing and presumed dead.

A search for their bodies was under way yesterday morning, according to Maryland State Police spokesperson Elena Russo. Among the missing were people from Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico, according to diplomats from those countries.