Divers search for six missing after bridge collapse

Baltimore port closed following disaster

/thesuntelegram

BALTIMORE: Search divers were expected to return to the waters surrounding the twisted ruins of a bridge knocked down in Baltimore Harbour by a faltering cargo ship, leaving six workers missing and presumed dead.

The disaster also forced the indefinite closure of the Port of Baltimore, one of the busiest on the US Eastern Seaboard, and created a traffic quagmire for Baltimore and the surrounding region.

As the odds of their survival vanished, the search for the six workers was suspended on Tuesday evening, 18 hours after they were thrown from the fallen Francis Scott Key Bridge into the frigid waters at the mouth of the Patapsco River.

Maryland State Police and US Coast Guard officials said diminished visibility and increasingly treacherous currents in the wreckage-strewn channel made continued search efforts on the river too risky to continue overnight.

“We’re hoping to put divers in the water and begin a more detailed search to do our very best to recover those six missing people,” said state police Colonel Roland Butler late on Tuesday.

“We do not believe that we’re going to find any of these individuals alive,” said Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath.

Rescuers pulled two other workers from the water alive on Tuesday, and one of them was hospitalised.

The six presumed to have died included workers from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador, according to the Mexican Consulate in Washington.

Officials said all eight were part of a work crew repairing potholes on Key Bridge’s road surface when the Singapore-flagged container vessel Dali, leaving Baltimore bound for Sri Lanka, plowed into a support pylon.

A trestled section of the 2.6km span crumpled into the icy water, sending vehicles and workers into the river.

The 289m ship had reported a loss of propulsion shortly before impact and dropped anchor to slow the vessel, giving transport authorities time to halt traffic on the bridge before the crash. That move likely prevented a higher death toll, authorities said.

It was unclear whether authorities also tried to alert the work crew ahead of the impact.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore said the bridge was up to code with no known structural issues. There was no evidence of foul play.

The Balitmore wreck drew attention to the vessel’s safety record. The same ship was involved in an incident in the port of Antwerp, Belgium, in 2016, hitting a quay as it tried to exit the North Sea container terminal.

An inspection in 2023 carried out in Chile found “propulsion and auxiliary machinery” deficiencies, according to data on the public Equasis website, which provides information on ships.

But Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority said in a statement that the vessel passed two separate foreign-port inspections in June and September 2023. It said a faulty fuel pressure gauge was rectified before the vessel departed the port following its June 2023 inspection.

Video footage on social media showed the vessel slamming into the Key Bridge in darkness, the headlights of vehicles visible on the span as it crashed into the water and the ship caught fire.

All 22 crew members on the ship, owned by Grace Ocean Pte Ltd, were accounted for, its management company, Synergy Marine Pte Ltd, reported. – Reuters