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.)

Washington:

A ship carrying a giant crane was en route Thursday to the scene of the catastrophic bridge collapse over Baltimore harbor, as authorities warned of extensive work before the major US port can reopen.

The machinery will be deployed in a tricky operation to clear the twisted steel remnants of the Francis Scott Key Bridge from where it fell 185 feet (56 meters) into the Patapsco River — blocking the entrance to the Port of Baltimore — after being struck by a massive cargo ship early Tuesday.

“We are moving heaven and earth” to get the commercial hub up and running again, senior White House official Tom Perez told MSNBC.

“There’s a heavy lift crane vessel that will be there later today to help with the debris,” he said.

Officials cautioned there would be challenges ahead, as efforts to recover the bodies of the four men still missing were called off late Wednesday when it was determined to be too dangerous to send divers into the wreckage.

“We’re… incredibly sensitive to the notion that this is also the resting place for four fathers, for four brothers, for four sons,” Perez added.

The missing men, all Latin American immigrants, are believed to have been killed when the Singapore-flagged 1,000-foot container ship Dali lost power and careened into a bridge support column.

Nearly the entire steel structure — crossed by tens of thousands of motorists each day — collapsed within seconds.

The workers were part of an eight-person road repair crew working an overnight shift. Two were rescued shortly after the collapse, and two bodies were recovered Wednesday.

Area residents attended a vigil at a nearby park Thursday morning, local media reported, while the Baltimore mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs established a relief fund to raise money for the victims’ families.

“Our hearts are with the families,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore told reporters, adding, “We are so sorry for this tragedy.”

He urged patience, saying, “This work (to rebuild) is not going to take hours, this work is not going to take days, this work is not going to take weeks.”

“We have a very long road ahead of us.”

– ‘Substantial loss’ –

Moore announced the Maryland Department of Transportation had asked the Biden administration for an initial $60 million for “immediate response efforts, and to lay the foundation for a rapid recovery.”

President Joe Biden earlier in the week pledged the federal government would cover the entire cost of rebuilding the bridge.

The disaster could result in the largest marine insurance payout ever, according to the head of insurance giant Lloyd’s of London, Bruce Carnegie-Brown.

“It feels like a very substantial loss, potentially the largest-ever marine insured loss, but not outside parameters that we plan for,” he told CNBC.

The harbor’s closure also raised concerns for the local economy — with 140,000 jobs supported by the port — and the wider national supply chain.

Baltimore is the biggest vehicle-handling port in the country, including cars and heavy farm equipment, according to US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg. About $100 to $200 million in value comes through the port daily.

Up the coast from Baltimore, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey will plan take on additional cargo to help blunt the supply chain impacts, the governors of those states pledged in a joint statement Thursday.

(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.

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.

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.