Crews are continuing to investigate and search for victims after the cargo ship collided with the bridge.
Maryland:
The bodies of two construction workers were found trapped in their red pickup truck in the frigid waters of Baltimore Harbor on Wednesday after a massive cargo ship crashed into the bridge they were filling in, causing a thunderous collapse .
Maryland State Police announced the gruesome discovery at a news conference, adding that sonar showed they believed more vehicles were trapped among the concrete and twisted steel debris of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
Six of the eight construction workers are believed to have been killed and four bodies have yet to be found.
Police warned at a news conference that it was not safe for divers to try to penetrate the wreckage and they were turning to salvage operations to remove the superstructure and then send divers back to recover the remaining bodies.
“Based on sonar scans, we strongly believe these vehicles were encased in superstructure and concrete, and we tragically saw them collapse,” Maryland State Police Superintendent Col. Roland Butler said at a news conference.
The roughly 1,000-foot (300-meter) container ship Dali, which was laden with cargo, was leaving the busy port for Asia at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday when a sudden power outage caused the vessel to hit a support column.
Nearly the entire steel structure – which tens of thousands of motorists pass by every day – collapsed in seconds, pouring off the ship’s bow and blocking one of the busiest trading ports in the United States.
The ship sent a distress signal moments before the collision, prompting police to scramble to stop traffic on the bridge, potentially saving lives.
But there was no chance to evacuate eight workers who were filling potholes in the road directly above the oncoming vessel.
Butler named the two victims found Wednesday as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes and his 26-year-old colleague Dorian Roniel Castillo Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, who lives in Baltimore but is originally from Mexico, and 35, who lives in suburban Dundalk but is from Guatemala.
He said they were found in 25 feet of water.
Two other people were rescued from the water after the cave-in earlier on Tuesday. One of them was not injured and the other was released from the hospital on Wednesday, Butler said.
Four more workers were presumed dead, lost in the chaos of swirling water and damaged girders and towers.
-A “hard-working” man-
Coast Guard Lt. Peter Gautier told reporters at the White House that the ship, which remained entangled in debris on Wednesday, was in “stable” condition, adding that a mostly Indian crew was on board and was “very actively” involved. investigation.
The federal authority the National Transportation Safety Board said the ship’s data records, or black boxes, had been recovered so investigators could understand what went wrong.
Gautier insisted that the ship did not pose an environmental hazard despite carrying a billion and a half gallons of oil and dozens of containers of hazardous materials. He said two more containers fell into the sea out of a total of 4,700.
Officials said the missing workers were from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.
“They are hard-working, humble people,” said Jesus Campos, a co-worker of the eight workers, who were all employed by contractor Brawner Builders.
One of the people now presumed dead is Miguel Luna, a father of three, according to Casa, a nonprofit that serves immigrant communities.
Casa said Luna, who is from El Salvador, went to work at 6:30 p.m. on Monday and never returned.
His wife, Maria del Carmen Castellon, told Telemundo 44 she was “frustrated” waiting for any information.
“This situation breaks my heart,” Campos said.
– Busy port blocked –
Video of the collision showed the vessel hitting one of the supports of the 47-year-old bridge.
The maritime authority of Singapore, where the ship is based, said on Wednesday that the ship had passed two overseas inspections in 2023, adding that the faulty monitor had been repaired in June.
The Port of Baltimore is the ninth busiest major port in the United States in terms of foreign cargo volume and foreign cargo value, directly supports more than 15,000 jobs and supports nearly 140,000 people.
U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the impact on supply chains was “clearly not going to be insignificant,” adding that it was “too early” to tell when ports would reopen.
“Rebuilding won’t be quick, it won’t be easy, it won’t be cheap,” he warned.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
