Shipping to and from Baltimore, one of the busiest U.S. ports, has been halted
Workers have lifted the first 200-ton piece of Baltimore’s collapsed bridge and are working to clear the port of steel structures destroyed by a runaway ship, officials said Sunday.
Demolition crews used blowtorches to cut away the upper portion of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. On Tuesday, a Dali cargo ship lost power and hit a bridge, which collapsed, killing six people.
Authorities hope that dismantling the bridge – cutting it into smaller sections and lifting it out – will help rescuers find the bodies of all the victims and reopen the vital waterway.
“Last night, the first lift was completed after cutting the top of the northern section of the base bridge,” U.S. Coast Guard spokesperson Kimberly Reaves said in a statement.
“About 200 tons of debris were dismantled last night,” she said, adding that the debris would be transferred to a barge and once loaded with more debris, taken to a debris storage location on land.
As the salvage operation continued Sunday, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said “despite the extreme complexity of the situation, progress is beginning to be made.”
He said poor weather conditions and underwater debris meant divers were unable to help.
Moore told CNN that a massive crane, a Chesapeake 1,000 that could lift 1,000 pounds, was used in the rescue operation.
-Search for bodies-
Video footage shared Saturday by the Joint Command, an integrated response team that includes the U.S. Coast Guard, showed sparks flying as workers suspended in cages crossed the upper portion of the bridge.
Moore said recovery would be a “long road”, adding “but action is happening”.
Difficult conditions have hampered efforts to recover the bodies of road workers – all Latino immigrants – who died when the bridge collapsed, with only two of the six bodies found so far.
Shipping in and out of Baltimore, one of the busiest ports in the United States, has been halted and the waterway is impassable as debris spreads.
Moore told MSNBC on Sunday that his first priority was to find the victims’ bodies before reopening the channel.
“It’s affecting the national economy. It’s the largest port for new cars, heavy trucks, agricultural equipment. It’s affecting people all over the country,” he said.
Due to a power failure, the ship diverted towards the bridge and the pilot issued a distress signal, allowing some road traffic to stop before the collision at 1.30am, seconds before the bridge structure collapsed.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that there is no timetable for cleaning up the ports and reopening them.
“It’s going to take a lot of effort to make sure it can be removed safely, that the ship stays where it’s supposed to be and doesn’t roll out into the channel, but it has to be done,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
