Baltimore bridge collapse: Recovery operation as six missing presumed dead, police say

The six missing in the Baltimore bridge collapse disaster are presumed dead, the coast guard has said as efforts have switched to a recovery operation.

Search divers were expected to return near dawn to the waters surrounding the twisted ruins of the bridge in Baltimore Harbor to search for the bodies after a cargo ship crashed into a 2.5km bridge in the Maryland city of Baltimore, causing it to collapse into the river below.

As the odds of their survival diminished, the search for the missing 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.

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

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Maryland State Police and U.S. 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.

Maryland governor Wes Moore said there was “no credible evidence of terrorist activity” as authorities scrambled to deal with the catastrophic loss of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which spanned the outer port of Baltimore, in the early hours of Tuesday.

Emergency crews were last night searching for six members of a construction crew that was working on the bridge when the ship crashed into one of its two central support pylons, causing the central portion of the vast structure to fall into the Patapsco river. Two people were rescued from the water shortly after the incident.

Speaking at a press conference on an embankment close to the bridge, Mr Moore said the sight of the sudden void and mangled metal around the stricken cargo ship was difficult to comprehend. He had learned of the incident by phone minutes after the crash occurred at 1.30am (5.30am Irish time).

“I have ridden over the Key Bridge countless times. So many of us know Key Bridge because it is our normal route. This is a place that is a normal commute route for over 30,000 Marylanders every single day,” he said.

“So, to hear the words that ‘the Key Bridge has collapsed’: it’s shocking. And heartbreaking. And immediately the first thought goes back to what happened to the people. What was the impact on human life? But for every single one of us that are Marylanders, the words that ‘the Key Bridge is gone’, it shakes us. Because for 47 years that’s all we have known. So, this is not just unprecedented what we are looking at today, it is heartbreaking.”

The 289m container ship Dali was just minutes into a planned 27-day journey to Colombo, Sri Lanka, when it apparently experienced a calamitous malfunction while approaching the bridge. Maersk, the Danish shipping giant, said in a statement it had chartered the Singapore-flagged vessel and its staff were “horrified” by what had happened. No Maersk crew were on board.

A mayday call issued by the ship’s pilots, who reported losing propulsion and warned of the danger of striking the bridge, enabled officials to stop traffic at both sides of the overpass in the minutes prior to the incident. None of the ship’s crew members was injured. The crew remained on board the vessel even as rescue efforts continued in the water and an investigation began.

Suggestions that a construction crew on site when the incident occurred were dealing with structural concerns about the bridge were denied by Maryland secretary of transportation, Paul Wiedefeld. “The crew that was out there working was basically repairing potholes,” he said

Asked whether rescuers believed that people had entered the water while in vehicles, Mr Wiedefeld said: “No, we do not believe so.” The Baltimore Sun had reported that the incident sent at least seven cars into the Patapcso river, but it is not clear whether or not they were occupied.

President Joe Biden, speaking shortly before leaving for a scheduled trip to North Carolina, paid tribute to the families of those caught up in what he described as “a terrible incident and accident”.

“I know every minute in that circumstance feels like a lifetime,” he said.

Noting that he had travelled the bridge many times as a commuter from Delaware, he promised to send all federal resources required.

“And I mean all the federal resources. And we are going to rebuild that port together. Everything so far indicates that this was a terrible accident. At this time we have no other indication or reason to believe there was an intentional act here.”

US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg visited the incident site and pledged to release emergency response funds to deal with a civic disaster that will have consequences in Baltimore and Maryland for years to come.

Civilians were requested to stay clear of the approach roads to the destroyed bridge, while major traffic disruptions and delays occurred as commuters navigated alternative routes in and around the Baltimore region. Ship traffic was suspended in the port of Baltimore, which is one of the busiest in the country. At least nine vessels were anchored in the Chesapeake Bay, outside the city harbour, on Tuesday.

The US National Transportation Safety Board opened an investigation and its engineers were on site on Tuesday. The catastrophe invited comparison to a similar incident last month in Guangzhou port in southern China, when a ship hit the supports of a two-lane bridge, causing vehicles to fall into the water. Five people were reported to have died.

As Baltimore awoke to the overnight disaster, questions were raised as to whether the pylons should have been buttressed with additional support to cope with any impact from the myriad cargo ships that leave and enter the harbour. The size of cargo vessels has increased considerably since the bridge in Baltimore was constructed in the 1970s. The Dali was believed to be travelling at eight knots at the moment of collision. Asked if the collapse was inevitable from the second the crash occurred, Mr Moore declined to elaborate.

“We are still in the process of investigating exactly what happened, so we don’t have any further details about whether or not it was inevitable. The bridge was fully up to code, so we have no further information about what happened. We don’t have any estimates on timelines. Right now, our exclusive focus is on saving lives.” - Additional reporting Reuters