The images are spectacular. The 1.5-mile-long Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore Monday night after being struck by a cargo ship. Tuesday evening, several workers present on the building at the time of the impact were still missing.
In a matter of seconds, Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge literally collapsed. In the early morning of Tuesday March 26, images of the Dali, the cargo ship involved in this incident, hitting the 2.5 km bridge went around the world. If the material damage is undeniable, the human toll may have been limited. The Singapore-flagged ship had issued an SOS before hitting the bridge head-on. The cause was “a power supply problem,” said Maryland State Governor Wes Moore on Tuesday afternoon.
When the bridge collapsed, around twenty people fell into the water, Kevin Cartwright of the Baltimore Fire Department reported to CNN mid-morning. This afternoon, six people were still actively sought. These are workers who were filling potholes when the ship hit the building. In all, eight workers fell into the water. Two were quickly identified. Late Tuesday evening, a member of the Baltimore City Council told CNN that a body had been discovered in the water while officially, six people were still missing.
After the tragedy, the governor of the State of Maryland declared a state of emergency. An investigation has since been entrusted to a team of 24 people from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which is none other than a government agency responsible for working on accidents, whether maritime, air or rail. The coast guard is responsible for finding missing people.
US President Joe Biden reacted to the “terrible accident” and sent his “prayers” to the victims. The head of state also expressed his “intention to see the federal state assume the entire cost of the reconstruction of this bridge”, even estimating on X that “the Francis Scott Key bridge is essential to [the ][American] economy.”
It appears that the ship in question has hit one of the bridge’s pillars. The extent of the damage remains to be seen, but the images are spectacular. A portion of the metal structure fell into the water. This bridge was built in 1977. It was 2.5 kilometers long and had four lanes of traffic.
In the images below, we can clearly identify the cargo ship colliding with the bridge. Many vehicles pass over the bridge a few seconds before the impact, their drivers escaped the worst.
According to the website Marinetraffic, an online platform that tracks the movements of cargo ships around the world, the vessel involved was the Dali, a container ship that had just left Baltimore for the port of Colombo, Sri Lanka . This merchant cargo ship would measure 300 meters long and 48 meters wide. Since the incident, all traffic on the waterways has been stopped.
