Baltimore, US:

The complex process of clearing the tangled wreckage of the Baltimore bridge that collapsed spectacularly this week was set to begin Saturday with removal of a first section, officials said.

The collapse killed six people and blocked traffic through the busy US port.

“This is the first of many, many, many steps going forward,” Maryland transportation secretary Paul Wiedefeld said at a news briefing. “But it is a huge milestone as we start this process.”

Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said a huge floating crane — capable of lifting loads of more than 100 tons — was set to move one fallen section of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. He gave no details on its dimensions.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore said the piece in question was not one of those pinning down the massive container ship Dali, which lost power Tuesday and crashed into a bridge pillar, provoking the shockingly quick collapse.

Moore said it would “take days,” but teams would eventually “open up a temporary restricted channel” allowing more tugs, barges and other boats to enter the area to accelerate the clean-up operation.

For now, shipping traffic is at a standstill, affecting thousands of shippers, port workers and others, and the thousands of people who normally use the bridge each day have had to find alternative routes.

Removing the twisted steel remnants of the bridge and freeing the Dali is a top priority for local authorities, who say the collapse could have a major impact on the regional economy for years.

“At least 8,000 workers on the docks have jobs that have been directly affected by this collapse,” Moore said.

The governor began his news conference by paying tribute to the six road workers — all Latino immigrants — who died when the bridge tumbled into the deep waters of the Patapsco River.

Two bodies have been recovered, while the four others have been declared missing and presumed dead.

Recovery efforts have been suspended, with authorities saying the water — cold, dark and filled with jagged steel and concrete debris — is for now too dangerous for divers.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A view of the vessel MV Dali under a collapsed portion of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, March 27, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

The story so far: On March 26, a container vessel ran into the pillar of a bridge on the Patapsco River in Baltimore, bringing a part of the structure crashing down together with some people and cars on the bridge. By late March 27, the U.S. Coast Guard had concluded its search in the river for the bodies of the six people who fell. The vessel had an all-Indian crew.

What is the timeline of events?

After departing from the port of Baltimore at 12.28 am local time, the 300-metre-long vessel Dali was headed for Colombo, Sri Lanka, with several containers of oil and some hazardous material. Less than an hour after its departure, people nearby reported the Dali’s lights flickering. Two minutes later, the ship’s course also started to angle towards two of the bridge’s pillars in the river. At 1.27 am local time, the Dali mowed into the pillar and brought down a segment of the bridge.

Shortly before the collision, a U.S. Coast Guard report said, the Dali’s crew had broadcast a mayday signal seeking help to control the vessel. This signal had alerted the Coast Guard as well as prompted local authorities to close the bridge for further traffic. A part of the bridge’s superstructure also fell on the vessel, smashing some containers and leaving them balanced precariously on the vessel.

Maryland governor Wes Moore later declared a state of emergency. The emergency response to the collision and collapse included fire service personnel, police officers, and officers of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). According to deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe, they were present to ascertain whether the collision was accidental or deliberate. As of March 28, federal officials had virtually ruled out deliberate intent.

The Dali belongs to the Danish shipping giant Maersk, flies a Singapore flag, and is managed by the Synergy Marine Group, headed by Rajesh Unni. It had two pilots at the time of the collision.

What were the casualties?

The Synergy Marine Group said in statements that all the 22 crew members were safe, that one had suffered minor injuries, and that he had since been treated.

The bridge’s collapse dropped eight people through 15 metres into the Patapsco River, which at the time had a temperature of around 8 degrees C. While two people were fished out soon after, the Coast Guard postponed the search for six others because of the river’s depth, temperature, lack of light, the presence of sharp objects in the water, and the risk of more parts of the bridge and/or the containers falling in.

Late on March 27, the Coast Guard called the search off altogether. Read Admiral Shannon Gilreath told reporters the team no longer expected to find the six persons alive given the ambient conditions and the time lapsed since the incident.

What happened to the ship?

The Dali is propelled by a nine-cylinder two-stroke diesel engine. In the two-stroke cycle, fuel is pumped into the combustion chamber, where a spark plug causes the fuel-air mixture to explode. The energy release pushes a piston up, rotating a crankshaft attached to a propeller. The explosion’s residue (exhaust) is then pumped out of the engine to bring the piston down in the second stroke.

According to the Coast Guard, just before the collision, the Dali lost all mechanical power, electronics, and the ability to steer the ship, pointing to an engine failure. Onlookers reported the vessel’s lights coming back on shortly after, which experts have attributed to a backup generator. The Coast Guard also recorded a statement that at least one of the ship’s engines “coughed” and that “the smell of burned fuel was everywhere in the engine room”.

In 2016, the Dali had collided with and damaged a container terminal berth in Antwerp. In 2023, Chilean authorities reported issues with Dali’s propulsion system, although according to Singaporean authorities the vessel had cleared two inspections at foreign ports in June and September that year. As it got started on its preliminary investigation, the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said it will also be checking whether the fuel used in the Dali’s engine was contaminated.

Could the collision have been prevented?

The Francis Scott Key Bridge – the structure in question – was built in the mid-1970s. Colin Caprani, a civil engineer at Monash University, Melbourne, wrote that the protective shielding around the pillars into which the ship moved weren’t designed to withstand the impact of such a large vessel. Together with the vessel’s speed at the time of collision, around 15 km/hr, he estimated the impact force to be equivalent to 20,000 tonnes.

In 2016, Panama Canal authorities upgraded its locks to allow larger ships to pass through. The Dali‘s design was subsequently modified to increase its container capacity by 10%. Before 2016, such large ships had seldom made port on the U.S. west coast, including Baltimore, for this reason – nor did bridges over waterways here have to contend with them.

According to a 2018 article from the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure, there were 35 “major bridge collapses” after a ship or barge collision between 1960 and 2015, in all killing 342 people. In the deadliest incident, a passenger vessel slammed into a bridge on the Volga river in Russia in 1983, killing 176 people, most of them on the ship. The same article said most of the bridge collapses had happened in the U.S.

A view of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, after the Dali cargo vessel crashed into it causing it to collapse, in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed early on Tuesday after a container ship smashed into a pylon, sending vehicles and eight people into frigid water below. Authorities stopped people from using the bridge after the ship sent out a mayday call, which Maryland’s governor said saved lives.

It may be some time before one of the busiest ports on the U.S. Eastern Seaboard can reopen.

WHAT HAPPENED IN BALTIMORE?

Shortly after 1 a.m. ET (0500 GMT), a container ship named the Dali was sailing down the Patapsco River on its way to Sri Lanka. At 1:24 a.m., it suffered a total power failure and all its lights went out.

Three minutes later, at 1:27 a.m., the container ship struck a pylon of the bridge, crumpling almost the entire structure into the water.

The bridge was up to code and there were no known structural issues, Maryland Governor Wes Moore said.

There was no indication of terrorism, police said.

WHY DID THE BRIDGE COLLAPSE?

The metal truss-style bridge has a suspended deck, a design that contributed to its collapse, engineers say. The ship appeared to hit a main concrete pier, which rests on soil underwater and is part of the foundation.

ARE THERE ANY CASUALTIES?

A construction crew was fixing potholes on the bridge and eight people fell 185 feet (56 meters) into the river where water temperatures were 47 F (8 C).

According to research for the Federal Aviation Administration, that is the upper limit of what a human could survive falling into water.

Two people were rescued, one unharmed and one critically injured. Six people remain missing.

Authorities saved lives by stopping vehicles from using the bridge after the ship sent out a mayday call, the Maryland governor said.

The ship also dropped its anchors to try to avoid the collision.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE SHIP THAT WAS INVOLVED?

The Dali was leaving Baltimore en route to Colombo, Sri Lanka. All 22 crew, including two pilots on board, have been accounted for and there were no injuries, the ship’s manager, Synergy Marine Group said.

The registered owner of the Singapore-flagged ship is Grace Ocean Pte Ltd, LSEG data show. The ship measures 948 feet (289 meters) — as long as three football fields placed end to end — and was stacked high with containers.

The ship can hold up to 10,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit, or TEU, a measure of cargo capacity. It was carrying 4,679 TEU.

The same ship was involved in an incident in the port of Antwerp, Belgium, in 2016, when it hit a quay as it tried to exit the North Sea container terminal.

A later inspection in June 2023 carried out in San Antonio in Chile found the vessel had “propulsion and auxiliary machinery” deficiencies, according to data on the public Equasis website, which provides information on ships.

WHAT DO WE KNOW ABOUT THE BRIDGE THAT COLLAPSED?

The Francis Scott Key Bridge was one of three ways to cross the Baltimore Harbor and handled 31,000 cars per day or 11.3 million vehicles a year.

The steel structure is four lanes wide and sits 185 feet (56 meters) above the river.

It opened in 1977 and crosses the Patapsco River, where U.S. national anthem author Francis Scott Key wrote the “Star Spangled Banner” in 1814 after witnessing the British defeat at the Battle of Baltimore and the British bombing of Fort McHenry.

HOW WILL THE BRIDGE COLLAPSE IMPACT THE BALTIMORE PORT?

Traffic was suspended at the port after the collision. It is one of the smallest container ports on the Northeastern seaboard, handling about a tenth of the volume that passes through the Port of New York and New Jersey.

The flow of containers to Baltimore can likely be redistributed to bigger ports, said container shipping expert Lars Jensen. However, there could be major disruptions in shipping cars, coal and sugar.

It is the busiest U.S. port for car shipments, handling at least 750,000 vehicles in 2023, according to data from the Maryland Port Administration.

In 2023, the port was the second busiest for coal exports.

It is also the largest U.S. port by volume for handling farm and construction machinery, as well as agricultural products such as sugar and salt.