First bridge disaster victims’ bodies recovered
Divers recovered the bodies of two men yesterday from inside a vehicle submerged in a river after this week’s Baltimore bridge collapse.
Eight road maintenance workers were on the bridge early on Tuesday when a container ship crashed into the structure, plunging them into the water as the bridge fell down.
Emergency crews searched the Patapsco River for the men and two people were rescued that day. One man, said to be called Julio Cervantes, was taken to hospital after being pulled from the water and has now been released.
The US Coast Guard called off the search at about sunset on Tuesday, saying the cold temperature of the water meant the remaining workers were presumed dead. The bodies of Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, who was originally from Mexico, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, originally from Guatemala, were recovered yesterday from inside a red pick-up truck in 25ft of water near what was once the middle of the bridge, police said.
Mexico’s foreign ministry said earlier that two of its citizens were presumed dead – one of whom is now identified as Mr Fuentes – while another was rescued from the water.
Two of the other missing men were named as Miguel Luna and Maynor Suazo Sandoval. Mr Luna was born in El Salvador and Mr Suazo Sandoval came from Honduras.
Mr Fuentes’s mother, Obdulia Fuentes, told the Daily Mail that her son followed to her to the US from Mexico in 2006 because “he couldn’t bear to be without his mother” and he had “always been a great son”.
The 36-year-old, who lived in Baltimore, left behind two sons and two daughters, aged between two and 14.
“From a very young age he always worried about me,” she said. “He always tried his best to help.”
Yesterday, Mr Cervantes’s wife said it was a miracle that he was still alive because he did not know how to swim. The woman, who did not want to be named, told NBC News: “All of the men were on a break in their cars when the boat hit. We don’t know if they were warned before the impact.
“My husband doesn’t know how to swim. It is a miracle he survived.”
He was taken to hospital with a chest wound but was released later that day, his wife said.
The other worker rescued on Tuesday was in a good condition and refused to be treated, authorities said previously.
Mr Cervantes’s wife added that one of the two men whose bodies
Pete Buttigieg, the US Transportation Secretary, said that 8,000 jobs were “directly associated” with port operations in Baltimore, which generate $2m a day in wages.
were recovered on Wednesday was her brother-in-law, but she did not reveal his name. She said her family was Mexican and her nephew was among those missing.
She added: “We haven’t been able to sleep, waiting for word if they’re going to find a relative.”
Police said divers were no longer able to navigate the waters safely because of debris found in the river.
The Baltimore bridge collapse could result in the biggest marine loss in the history of the insurance industry, according to the chairman of Lloyd’s of London.
US authorities are investigating why the Singapore-flagged cargo ship Dali lost power and crashed into a pier of the Francis Scott Key Bridge early on Tuesday, bringing down the structure and killing six workers.
The Lloyd’s chairman, Bruce Carnegie-Brown, warned that the cost to insurers was likely to exceed the previous record of $1.5bn, resulting from the Costa Concordia shipwreck near Tuscany in 2012.
He said the destruction of the bridge was a rare incident because it was a “fully insured risk event”, meaning that both the vessel’s cargo
and the port were fully covered. Further claims could result from the knock-on effects of the disaster, such as from ships trapped in Baltimore’s port and vessels that are unable to access the docks.
Mr Carnegie-Brown said that these possible claims were “the bit we know the least about”. He added: “That’s likely to make quite a big difference to the total outcome. I think it has the capacity to be the largest single-insured marine loss event as the claims develop.”
Initial estimates have put the cost of rebuilding the bridge at $600m (£475m). Analysts at Jefferies, an investment bank, have estimated that the incident could result in losses of between $1bn and $3bn.
Barclays analysts estimated that insurers could face claims of as much as $3bn and that claims for damage to the bridge alone could reach $1.2bn, with liabilities of anywhere between $350m and $700m for wrongful deaths.
Hundreds of millions more may also be paid out for business disruption caused by the closure of Baltimore port.
Lloyd’s could end up covering “about 10 per cent” of the Baltimore bill, Mr Carnegie-Brown estimated.
“It will be a major loss for the market,” he said, adding that it could take one to two years to settle claims.
John Neal, chief executive of Lloyd’s, said it assumed every year that such types of loss would occur, and that expectations for financial considerations were “manageable”.
“The good news here is the insurance is in force. The boat is insured, the bridge is insured, the port authority is insured,” he said.
He added that the entire incident would show “how insurance works”, he told the Financial Times.
Mr Neal also said that insurers should “just get on with it” and pay out rather than wrangle about liability and delay payments.
The US Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen, said that she expects insurers’ payouts to help cover some of the costs of rebuilding the destroyed bridge.