Washington:

A stranded cargo ship that has been blocking one of America’s busiest ports will be removed Monday nearly two months after it struck and destroyed a bridge in Baltimore, authorities said over the weekend.

The complex operation would see the nearly 1,000-foot (300-meter) Dali container vessel transported to a marine terminal, marking a major step in reopening the key shipping channel.

The Singapore-flagged ship lost power before it plowed into a support column of the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, causing it to collapse and killing six construction workers who had been atop the major transit route.

The accident shut down the port, though temporary channels have allowed some traffic in and out of Baltimore.

Authorities leading the salvage operation said the Dali would be prepared for refloating from midday (1600 GMT) Sunday ahead of being moved at high tide on Monday, forecast for 5:24 am.

Divers will first inspect the ship to ensure there are no obstructions after demolition experts last week used explosives to remove parts of the collapsed steel bridge trapping the Dali, which still has its 21-man crew onboard.

Salvagers will then draw out up to 1.25 million gallons (4.7 million liters) of water previously pumped into the Dali to stabilize it as ballast, before releasing its anchors and mooring lines.

Tugboats will transport the Dali at around 1 mile per hour (1.6 kilometers per hour) to a nearby marine terminal, with the journey expected to take three hours.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore told NBC News on Sunday he was “proud that we’re on track and by the end of May we’ll have that federal channel reopened.”

Authorities have been working around the clock to clear the fallen bridge and reopen the waterway after it was rendered impassable due to the sprawling wreckage.

The port is a key hub for the auto industry, handling almost 850,000 autos and light trucks last year — more than any other US port, according to state figures.

In April the FBI launched a criminal probe into the incident, with its agents boarding the Dali as part of the investigation.

The National Transportation Safety Board, which is also investigating, said on Tuesday the ship had two electricity blackouts in the moments before the disaster.

It also said the crew had been tested multiple times, before and after the disaster, for drugs and alcohol, and that none had showed.

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

File picture of the fallen Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
| Photo Credit: AP

The crew of 20 Indians and a Sri Lankan of the crippled container vessel that collided with a key Baltimore bridge last week is “busy with their normal duties” and will remain on board until the investigation into the accident is completed, the company that owns the vessel has said.

The container vessel Dali collided with the 2.6-km-long four-lane Francis Scott Key Bridge over the Patapsco River in Baltimore in the early hours of March 26. The 984-foot cargo ship was bound for Colombo, Sri Lanka.

ALSO READ | How did the Baltimore bridge disaster happen? | Explained

Just minutes before colliding with the bridge, there was a total blackout on the ship, indicating that the vessel lost engine power and electrical power, according to U.S. media reports.

“It is confirmed there are 21 crew members on board. The crew members are busy with their normal duties on the ship as well as assisting the National Transportation Safety Board and Coast Guard investigators on board,” a spokesperson of Grace Ocean Pte and Synergy Marine told PTI.

On how long the crew would have to stay on board the ship, the spokesperson said: “At this time, we do not know how long the investigation process will take and until that process is complete, the crew will remain on board.”

The Singapore-flagged Dali is owned by Grace Ocean Pte Ltd and managed by the Synergy Marine Group. Earlier, the non-profit organisation Baltimore International Seafarers’ Center had said that the Indian crew on board the container vessel was “healthy”.

The Ministry of External Affairs in New Delhi earlier said that there were 20 Indians on board Dali and the Indian embassy in Washington was in close touch with them and local authorities.

Last week, US authorities began interviewing personnel on board Dali. The Synergy Group had said in a statement that the NTSB boarded the vessel on Wednesday and collected documents, voyage data recorder extracts, and other evidence as part of their investigation.

Grace Ocean and Synergy confirmed the safety of all crew members and two pilots aboard the vessel. They, however, reported one minor injury and said the injured crew member had been treated and discharged from a hospital.

Six people, who were part of a construction crew repairing potholes on the bridge when the collision occurred, are presumed dead. Divers recovered the bodies of two of the construction workers from a red pickup truck found submerged in the river and a search was on for the remaining four victims.

U.S. President Joe Biden said that the crew on board Dali had alerted transportation personnel about losing control of the vessel, enabling authorities to close the Baltimore bridge to traffic before the devastating collision, “undoubtedly” saving lives.

Meanwhile, a temporary alternative route for ships is to be opened in the U.S. city of Baltimore following the collapse of, officials announced.

Efforts are underway to remove debris from the water. A 200-tonne piece of the bridge was removed on Saturday.

Those involved in the clean-up have been cutting debris from the bridge into smaller pieces that can be removed and taken to a disposal site.

The collapse of the bridge has effectively shut down operations at Baltimore’s port, affecting about 8,000 jobs and about $2 million in daily wages for those workers, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said last week.

Between $100 million and $200 million worth of trade went through the port daily before the bridge’s collapse, and the port was America’s largest for handling vehicle imports, Mr. Buttigieg said.

Maryland:

The bodies of two construction workers were found in the cold waters of Baltimore harbor Wednesday, trapped in their red pick-up truck after a giant cargo ship slammed into the bridge they had been filling potholes on, causing a thunderous collapse.

Maryland police announced the grim discovery at a press conference, adding that sonar shows what they believe are more vehicles trapped within the concrete and twisted steel debris of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

Six of the eight-man construction crew are believed to have been killed, with four bodies yet to be found.

Warning that it was not safe for divers to try to penetrate the wreckage, police told a press conference that they were shifting to a salvage operation, removing the superstructure and then sending divers back in to recover the rest of the bodies.

“Based on sonar scans, we firmly believe that the vehicles are encased in the superstructure and concrete that we tragically saw come down,” Colonel Roland Butler, the superintendent of Maryland’s state police, told a press conference.

The container ship Dali, about 1,000 feet (300 meters) long, and piled high with cargo, was leaving the busy port at 1:30 am Tuesday en route to Asia when power failed and the vessel crashed straight into a support column.

Nearly the entire steel structure — crossed by tens of thousands of motorists each day — collapsed within seconds, cascading over the bow of the ship, blocking one of the busiest US trading ports.

The ship issued a Mayday call in the moments before the collision, prompting police to rush to stop traffic on the bridge — likely saving lives.

But there was no chance to evacuate the eight workers filling potholes on the road directly above the oncoming ship.

Butler named the two victims found Wednesday as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, a 35-year-old who had lived in Baltimore but was originally from Mexico, and his 26-year-old colleague Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, who lived in the suburb of Dundalk but came from Guatemala.

They were found in 25 feet of water, he said.

Two others were pulled from the water alive in the moments after the collapse early Tuesday. One was uninjured, while the second was released from hospital Wednesday, Butler said.

Four more workers are presumed dead, vanished into the swirling currents and crumpled tangle of wrecked girders and pylons.

– ‘Hard-working’ men –

The vessel, which remained entangled in the debris Wednesday, was “stable,” Coast Guard Vice Admiral Peter Gautier told reporters at the White House, adding that the mostly Indian crew remained on board and were “very much engaged” in the investigation.

The National Transportation Safety Board, a federal authority, said that the ship’s data record, or black box, had been recovered so that investigators can understand what went wrong.

Gautier insisted the ship did not present an environmental danger, despite the billion and a half gallons of oil and few dozen hazardous material cargo containers on board. Two other containers — of the total 4,700 — were lost overboard, he said.

Officials said the missing workers were from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico.

“They are all hard-working, humble men,” said Jesus Campos, a colleague of the eight workers, all employed by contractor Brawner Builders.

One of those now presumed dead was father-of-three Miguel Luna, according to the nonprofit Casa, which serves immigrant communities.

Luna, from El Salvador, had left for work at 6:30 pm on Monday and never returned, Casa said.  

His wife, Maria del Carmen Castellon, told Telemundo 44 that she was “devastated” by the wait for any information.

“My heart hurts with this situation,” said Campos.

–  Busy harbor blocked  –

Footage of the collision showed the vessel slamming into one of the 47-year-old bridge’s supports.

The ship had passed two overseas inspections in 2023, the maritime authority for Singapore, where the ship is flagged, said Wednesday, adding that a fault monitor gauge was fixed in June.

The Port of Baltimore is the ninth-busiest major US port in terms of both foreign cargo handled and foreign cargo value, and is directly responsible for more than 15,000 jobs, supporting almost 140,000 more.

The effect on supply chains “clearly will not be trivial,” US Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg said, adding it was “too soon” to know when the port might reopen.

“Rebuilding will not be quick, or easy, or cheap,” he cautioned.

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

Wreckage lies across the deck of the Dali cargo vessel, which crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge causing it to collapse, in Baltimore.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Diverted cargo and supply chain disruptions have left businesses rushing to avoid an economic hit following the collapse of a major bridge in Baltimore after it was hit by a cargo ship.

With vessel traffic at the Port of Baltimore suspended until further notice since Tuesday’s accident, experts warn of knock-on effects but say these should be manageable in the near term.

Baltimore is the biggest vehicle-handling port in the country, including cars and heavy farm equipment, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg told a press briefing.

He estimates there is between $100 and $200 million in value coming through the port daily, with “about $2 million in wages that are at stake every day.”

He added in a CBS interview that ocean shippers, other ports and cargo owners are working to figure out where to divert ships headed that way.

Besides the direct hit to thousands of Baltimore port workers, Maryland Governor Wes Moore warned in a CNN interview that more than 140,000 people could be indirectly impacted by disruptions.

“The Port of Baltimore has such a significant economic impact, not just on my state,” he said. The port handled over 50 million tons of foreign cargo last year.

“This is the impact it’s going to have on our country’s economy,” he added.

Experts noted that the economic blow will also depend on the length of work stoppage.

Ted Hampton, senior credit officer at Moody’s Ratings, said replacing the collapsed bridge “will likely take months or even years.”

– Diverted cargo –

Cargo bound for Baltimore will probably be partially diverted to the Port of New York and New Jersey, analysts say.

The port “has the capacity to handle whatever will come their way,” a shipping industry source told AFP.

This is because the Port of New York and New Jersey is the second or third busiest in the country, and handles the equivalent of Baltimore’s year-long container volume in a much shorter period, the source said.

Bethann Rooney, port director at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, added that it is “proactively working with our industry partners to respond as needed and ensure supply chain continuity along the East Coast.”

While there will be “noticeable headaches” in the coming months, economist Ryan Sweet at Oxford Economics expects businesses will be able to adapt.

There will be supply chain disruptions, but he said: “I don’t think it’s going to have a macroeconomic effect because there are so many large ports within close proximity.”

These ports can likely handle a rise in cargo volumes, Sweet noted.

He added that there will probably not be a “broad-based supply shock” that will impact US inflation for consumer goods or GDP.

– Autos and coal –

Certain sectors will be more impacted, such as automobiles, noted logistics platform Container xChange.

According to official figures, the Baltimore port’s private and public terminals handled over 840,000 autos and light trucks in 2023, the most among US ports.

“The port is a crucial gateway for specialized cargo and bulk handling,” said Container xChange.

It warned that delays in cargo movement “could lead to inventory shortages, affecting businesses that rely on timely deliveries, like the automotive industry.”

Companies seeking alternative routes could also face greater transportation costs.

Among auto companies importing through Baltimore is carmaker Mazda, which told AFP that the Baltimore port is “a vital part of Mazda’s logistics chain in the United States.”

“Mazda is currently assessing the potential impacts of a prolonged closure of the Port of Baltimore to ensure minimal disruption to operations,” a spokesperson said.

Automaker Stellantis said it is starting talks with transportation providers for “contingency plans to ensure an uninterrupted flow of vehicles” to customers.

The port also ranked second last year in the United States for coal exports.

While it accounts for around a quarter of seaborne US coal exports, the United States only makes up about six percent of the global seaborne trade, said Alexis Ellender, a lead analyst at trade intelligence firm Kpler.

While there will be a regional hit, “on a global scale, the disruption would not be significant,” he said.

Sweet of Oxford Economics said there will unlikely be broad-based shortages in autos, with weaker demand for new vehicles and higher inventories these days.

“The issues could be more isolated to certain companies that rely on the Port of Baltimore to bring in their inventory,” he said.