Early Tuesday morning, a container ship collided with the historic Francis Scott Key Bridge near the American city of Baltimore, causing most of it to collapse.
At that time several vehicles on the bridge fell into the waters of the Patapsco River. Hours later, the Coast Guard said at least six people were assumed dead.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore has declared a state of emergency and the Port of Baltimore is closed to ships.
President Joe Biden vowed the federal government would cover the “entire cost” of rebuilding the bridge and reopening the port.
What do we know about the bridge?
The Baltimore Bridge, more colloquially known as the Key Bridge, opened in 1977 in honor of Francis Scott Key, the 19th-century Maryland poet who wrote the words to the U.S.
national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner. The bridge was 1.6 miles (2.6 km) long and spanned the Patapsco River and the Port of Baltimore. This river flows into the Chesapeake Bay, America’s largest estuary.
It is described as a continuous truss bridge, and its main span was 1,200 feet which was the third longest of any bridge of its type in the world.
Video footage of the incident shows that the bridge collapsed immediately after the container ship hit one of the pillars of Dali. This happened around 01:30 local time (05:30 GMT) on Tuesday.
Eight people were seen on the bridge at the time – all of them members of the construction crew that had been given the contract to repair and fix potholes.
Two of the employees are from Guatemala, according to the country’s Consulate General in Maryland.
Two people were pulled from the water after the bridge collapse, one in critical condition and the other uninjured, officials said.
But the U.S. Coast Guard said Tuesday evening that six others likely died due to the cold water temperatures and hours spent below the surface.
The agency said it was suspending its main day-long search and rescue operation.
It will now focus on a recovery mission to locate the bodies and reach out to the families of the victims.
Officials said first responders worked in dangerous conditions to try to find people, as there were “some items or retainers hanging from the bridge” as well as dangerous debris in the water.
The water temperature in the harbor was reported to be around 9C (48F). Hypothermia can occur when a person’s body temperature quickly drops below 35 C. Baltimore fire officials said the vehicles were detected in the water by sonar.
What do we know about the ship?
The Singapore-flagged container ship Dali was originally built by South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries for Greek shipowner Oceanbulk.
It is currently operated by charter vessel company Synergy Group and was temporarily leased by container shipping giant Maersk, a statement from Maersk said. Maersk said it was carrying cargo for Maersk customers but that no company personnel were on board the ship at the time.
Dali Container Ship
The ship departed from Seagirt Marine Terminal in Baltimore at approximately 00:24 local time on Tuesday for Colombo, Sri Lanka. Its speed continued to increase and it maintained a straight course to the southeast along the Patapsco River.
Then at 01:25 marine traffic data shows that the ship suddenly deviated from its straight course and began to slow down.
Around this time, the video shows that all of the ship’s exterior lights suddenly turned off and smoke began billowing from the ship’s funnels. Shortly afterwards he collided with the bridge.
The May Day signal was sent as the large ship approached the bridge, giving authorities time to stop cars running on the bridge and “saved lives”, according to Governor Moore.
He said the ship was moving “very, very fast” at eight knots, or about 9 mph (15 km/h).
A declassified memo from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency, obtained by the BBC’s US partner CBS, said Dali had “lost propulsion”.
Synergy said the crew, all of whom are Indian nationals, and the two pilots on board the plane have been located and there are no reports of injuries.
The company said there were several possible explanations for the incident, but that such an accident with two pilots present was unusual.
A shipping expert told the BBC that the accident could have been caused by machine failure, steering malfunction or a creator knockout. This is possible due to this. This isn’t the first incident involving Dali.
The boat scraped her stern, damaging the housing, while trying to leave the harborage of Antwerp, Belgium in 2016. There’s no report of anyone being injured or water falling.
What will be the impact of ground breaking?
The condition of the Key Bridge indicates that there will be major dislocation to road business for months and times to come. Shipping exertion in the Port of Baltimore would also be oppressively impacted.
The four- lane ground was part of Interstate 695, and the external ring road around town Baltimore known as the” Baltimore Beltway”, and carried an estimated11.5 million vehicles per time!
It will still be possible to cross the Port of Baltimore by tunnel near the city, but local officials have declared a “major traffic alert” anticipating significant traffic problems following the incident.
The collapse of the ground, in particular, would be a major problem for lorries carrying dangerous accoutrements , which were suitable to cross the ground but are confined by the indispensable lair route.
But this incident has not caused any major problems for shipping. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg declined to give a timeline Tuesday for the harborage check, but said it would have a”
large and continuing impact on force chains.” Container shipping expert Lars Jensen said what happed was a” major disaster” that would” produce significant problems for US importers and exporters on the US East Coast”.
“ numerous trafficker vessels are now stuck in the Port of Baltimore, ” he says, in addition to the roughly 21,000 units passing through other anchorages in the region.
There are no vessel vessels but some bulk carriers. It’s estimated that roughly 800,000 vehicles will pass through the harborage in 2023, carrying a record1.3 million tonnes of imported goods. Click Here
still, Mr Johnson says that although there will be some detainments and fresh costs, from a global perspective the incident won’t have a significant impact. Click here