Bridge in Baltimore: rescue teams lose hope of finding survivors | U.S

Rescue teams are giving up hope of finding more survivors among the debris from the collapse of the Baltimore bridge, which collapsed in the early hours of Tuesday. Efforts are now focused not only on searching for the bodies of the missing people, but also on looking for more answers that could explain the accident.

A team of divers is expected to return this morning to the waters surrounding the ruins of the bridge to search for the six missing workers. The accident forced the indefinite closure of the port of Baltimore, one of the busiest on the east coast of the United States, and created traffic chaos in the area and the surrounding region.

The chances of survival are decreasing and the search for the workers was suspended on Tuesday night, 18 hours after these six people were thrown from the Francis Scott Key Bridge and fell into the freezing waters of the Patapsco River.

Maryland National Guard/REUTERS

“We don’t believe we’re going to find any of these individuals alive,” Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said at a press conference.

Maryland State Police and the U.S. Coast Guard said reduced visibility and increasingly treacherous currents in the debris-strewn channel made search efforts in the river too risky to continue overnight.

“Beginning at 6 a.m. Wednesday, we expect to get divers into the waters and begin a more detailed search and do our best to recover the six missing people,” state police Col. Roland Butler told reporters Tuesday. .

Two people have already been removed from the water, one of them in serious condition. All cargo ship crew are safe. The six missing people were workers from Mexico, Guatemala and El Salvador, according to the Mexican consulate in Washington.

According to authorities, the eight were part of a team that was repairing holes in the deck of the Key Bridge when the container ship From thereflying the Singapore flag, departed Baltimore bound for Sri Lanka and collided with a support pillar of the bridge at around 1:30 am.

A part of the bridge almost immediately fell into the water, throwing vehicles and workers into the river.

The 289-meter ship had already reported loss of propulsion shortly before impact and dropped anchor to slow down, giving shipping authorities time to halt traffic on the bridge before the accident. This measure will have prevented a greater number of deaths, authorities said.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said at a press conference Tuesday that the bridge was in compliance with regulations and that there were no known structural problems.

Ship passed two inspections

The sinking of the Baltimore brought into focus the safety record of the ship, which had been involved in an incident in the port of Antwerp, Belgium, in 2016, when it collided with a pier while trying to leave the North Sea container terminal.

An inspection carried out in 2023 in Chile detected deficiencies in the “propulsion and auxiliary machines”, according to data from the site public Equasis, which provides information about ships.

But the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore said in a statement that the ship passed two inspections, in June and September 2023. The authority said a faulty fuel pressure gauge was repaired before the ship left port. after the June 2023 inspection.

US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said the port closure would have a “major and prolonged impact on supply chains.” The Port of Baltimore handles more automotive cargo than any other U.S. port — more than 750,000 vehicles in 2022, according to port data, as well as containers and bulk cargo, from sugar to coal.

Still, economists and logistics experts said they doubted that the port’s closure would trigger a major crisis in the U.S. supply chain or a major increase in the price of goods, given the ample capacity of other shipping hubs along the East Coast. .

The loss of the bridge also affected Baltimore’s roads, forcing motorists to use two other congested port crossings. The bridge, opened in 1977 and named after the author of the Star-Spangled Bannerhad a daily traffic of around 31 thousand vehicles and served as the main route for motorists between New York and Washington looking to avoid downtown Baltimore.

The president of the National Transport Safety Council, Jennifer Homendy, said that a team of 24 employees is already on site to investigate the accident and that other officials from Singapore would arrive this Wednesday.

The Baltimore bridge disaster could be the worst U.S. bridge collapse since 2007, when the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis plunged into the Mississippi River, killing 13 people.