Washington:

The body of the sixth and final victim who died after a container ship struck a bridge in the US city of Baltimore has been recovered, Maryland state authorities said Tuesday.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge, a major transit route into the busy port of Baltimore, collapsed on March 26 when the Dali container ship lost power and collided into a support column, killing six roadway construction workers.

The victim was identified by authorities as 37-year-old Jose Mynor Lopez, a construction worker from Baltimore, Maryland, who had been working on the bridge when it collapsed.

“Today, Jose Mynor Lopez, the sixth and final missing victim, was recovered,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon M Scott said on X, formerly Twitter.

The Unified Command, a joint task force made up of police, the coast guard and government agencies responding to the disaster, said Lopez’s family members had been notified.

Maryland State Police said the recovery of the body was a “milestone” in recovery efforts.

Work to fully reopen the shipping channel would continue “as we close this chapter in this (recovery) effort,” Scott said.

The 1,000-foot (300-meter) Dali ship had issued a Mayday call moments before the collision which gave police time to stop traffic to the bridge, likely saving lives.

But an eight-man construction crew repairing potholes on the bridge could not be reached in time, and plummeted with the tons of concrete and twisted steel into the Patapsco River.

Two workers were rescued alive, one briefly hospitalized and the other uninjured.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Transportation Safety Board have both opened criminal investigations into the disaster.

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

Washington:

President Joe Biden took an aerial tour on Friday of the collapsed Baltimore bridge that is blocking a key East Coast shipping lane, and he pledged federal help in rebuilding the span, an idea some Republican lawmakers in the U.S. Congress have resisted.

A cargo ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge on March 26, sending it splashing into the harbor and killing six people. Work to clear the wreckage and restore traffic through the Mid-Atlantic state’s shipping channel is ongoing.

Aboard his Marine One helicopter, Biden flew over the scene of the disaster to get an aerial view. He met local officials for a briefing on the economic impact to the Baltimore port, an important shipping destination for ships to offload automobiles.

Speaking with the fallen bridge behind him as an imposing backdrop, Biden vowed, “We will not rest” until the bridge is rebuilt and the area is back to normal.

He called on Congress to approve funding for the new bridge as soon as possible.

“I’m here to say your nation has your back and I mean it,” Biden said. “We’re going to get this paid for.”

He also vowed that the parties responsible for the bridge collapse will help pay to repair the damage and “be held accountable to the fullest extent the law will allow.”

Biden later met the families of the six people killed in the accident. The victims were all immigrants from Mexico and Central America, who were fixing potholes on the road surface of the bridge when it collapsed.

Shortly before the president’s flyover, dive teams recovered the body of one of the missing highway repair workers, Maynor Yasir Suazo-Sandoval, 38, of Honduras, officials said. Three other bodies remain trapped beneath the underwater debris. Two others were previously recovered.

Biden’s meeting with the families of these immigrant workers came as his rival Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump has ramped up anti-immigrant rhetoric and cast migrants as dangerous criminals “poisoning the blood” of America.

State and federal officials have raised alarms over the hardships the port’s closure could impose on the regional economy with thousands of port workers already idled.

The Port of Baltimore ranks first in the U.S. for volume of autos and light trucks and farm and construction machinery handled, according to the state of Maryland. Most of that traffic has been suspended since the accident, though some terminal operations outside the affected area have resumed.

The White House’s Office of Management & Budget (OMB), in a letter to Congress on Friday, asked the federal government to cover the bridge replacement, which federal officials say could cost at least $2 billion.

Some Republican hardliners in the U.S. House of Representatives oppose using new federal dollars to fund the bridge’s reconstruction. Such a request could probably pass the Senate, controlled by Biden’s fellow Democrats, but may run into trouble in the narrowly divided House.

The House Freedom Caucus, a bloc of roughly three dozen hardline Republicans who can wield outsized influence over House Speaker Mike Johnson, on Friday issued a series of demands in exchange for their cooperation.

FUNDING FOR THE BRIDGE

Hours after the bridge collapse, Biden said the U.S. government would “pay the entire cost” of reconstruction and his administration announced $60 million in emergency relief last week.

The administration will pursue all avenues to recover costs and “ensure that any compensation for damages or insurance proceeds collected will reduce costs for the American people,” Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young wrote on Friday.

White House officials have held talks in recent weeks with Johnson’s office over billions in aid for Ukraine and Israel as well as money for the collapsed bridge, according to two officials familiar with conversations who asked not to be named.

The spending measures separately have bipartisan support, but the White House is aware that Johnson must satisfy his hardline colleagues, which means many spending proposals will be tethered together in order to pass, the officials said.

The Freedom Caucus, whose members helped oust Johnson’s predecessor last year, said Congress should seek “maximum liability” from foreign shipping companies.

It also demanded that any aid be fully offset with spending cuts and that the Endangered Species Act and other regulations are waived to avoid delays.

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

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.)

Salvage crews were set to lift the first piece of Baltimore’s collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge from the water on Saturday to allow barges and tugboats to access the disaster site, Maryland and U.S. officials said, the first step in a complex effort to reopen the city’s blocked port.

The steel truss bridge collapsed early on Tuesday morning, killing six road workers, when a massive container ship lost power and crashed into a support pylon, sending much of the span crashing into the Patapsco River, blocking the Port of Baltimore’s shipping channel.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore told a news conference that a section of the bridge’s steel superstructure north of the crash site would be cut into a piece that could be lifted by crane onto a barge and brought to the nearby Tradepoint Atlantic site at Sparrows Point.

“This will eventually allow us to open up a temporary restricted channel that will help us to get more vessels in the water around the site of the collapse,” Moore said.

He declined to provide a timeline for this portion of the clearance work. “It’s not going to take hours,” he said. “It’s not going to take days, but once we complete this phase of the work, we can move more tugs and more barges and more boats into the area to accelerate our recovery.”

Workers will not yet attempt to remove a crumpled part of the bridge’s superstructure that is resting on the bow of the Dali, the 984-foot Singapore-flagged container ship that brought down the bridge. Moore said it was unclear when the ship could be moved, but said that its hull, while damaged, is “intact.”

“This is a remarkably complex operation,” Moore said of the effort to clear bridge debris and open the Port of Baltimore to shipping traffic.

The bodies of two workers who were repairing the bridge deck at the time of the disaster have been recovered, but Moore said efforts to recover four others presumed dead remain suspended because conditions are too dangerous for divers to work amid too much debris.

Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath told reporters that teams from the Coast Guard, the U.S. Navy’s salvage arm and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said the debris from the Patapsco River’s deep-draft shipping channel would have to be removed before the Dali could be moved.

Saturday’s operation involves cutting a piece just north of that channel and lifting it with a 160-ton marine crane onto a barge. A larger, 1,000-ton crane also is at the bridge site.

The piece will be brought to Tradepoint Atlantic, the site of the former Bethlehem Steel Mill which is being developed into a distribution center for companies including Amazon.com, Home Depot and Volkswagen. The facility’s port, which sits on the Chesapeake Bay side of the collapsed bridge, is fully operational.

Five days after the tragedy, the jobs of some 15,000 people whose work revolves around daily port operation are on hold. While logistics experts say that other East Coast ports should be able to handle container traffic, Baltimore is the largest U.S. port for “roll-on, roll-off” vehicle imports and exports of farm and construction equipment.

U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said the Small Business Administration has approved the state’s request for a disaster declaration that allows small firms affected by the disaster to apply for emergency low-interest loans of up to $2 million through the end of 2024.

The federal government on Thursday awarded Maryland an initial $60 million in emergency funds to clear debris and begin rebuilding the Key Bridge, an extraordinarily fast disbursement. President Joe Biden has pledged that the federal government would cover all costs of removing the debris and rebuilding the bridge.

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

New Delhi:

Six people are presumed dead after an out-of-control cargo ship smashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. While several, including US President Joe Biden, are praising the Indian crew on the ship a ‘racist’ cartoon depicting the incident has stirred a storm.

The Singapore-flagged container ship Dali lost power and crashed into a concrete pier supporting the bridge on Tuesday. Within seconds almost the entire bridge collapsed and plunged into what officials said was roughly 50 feet of frigid water below.

Biden praised the ship’s crew, most of whom were Indians for their prompt Mayday call which prompted authorities to scramble to shut down traffic to the bridge, potentially saving lives.

A day later, a US-based webcomic shared a cartoon depicting the incident. The animated video shows unkempt men dressed only in loincloths preparing for the impending crash and was directed at the crew on the ship.

“Last known recording from inside the Dali moments before impact,” Foxford Comics wrote on X (formerly Twitter) while sharing the video. The cartoon also had the audio of people swearing at each other in English but with a strong Indian accent.

Last known recording from inside the Dali moments before impact pic.twitter.com/Z1vkc828TY

— Foxford Comics (@FoxfordComics) March 26, 2024

The graphic has gone viral garnering 4.2 million views and 2k comments.

The account is being criticised not just for its racist depiction of Indians, but also for undermining the ship’s crew.

Sharing the cartoon, Indian economist Sanjeev Sanyal wrote that the ship was likely being steered by a local pilot at the time of the incident.

“At the time that the ship hit the bridge, it would have had a local pilot. In any case, the crew had warned the authorities which is why the casualties were relatively few (for such a disaster). The mayor in fact thanked the Indian crew as “heroes” for raising an alarm that limited casualties,” he said.

Another X user, Pooja Sangwan, echoed the sentiment and said, “It’s shameful that people are mocking Indian crew for the tragic incident. Meanwhile the governor himself praised the crew.”

It’s shameful that people are mocking Indian Crew for the tragic incident…

Meanwhile the governor himself praised the crew https://t.co/bgkdACmwyL

— Pooja Sangwan ( Modi Ka Parivar ) (@ThePerilousGirl) March 27, 2024

The bridge collapse is expected to have a major impact on the US economy as 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 to take on additional cargo to help blunt the supply chain impacts, the governors of those states pledged in a joint statement Thursday.

Divers recovered the remains of two of the six missing workers more than a day after a cargo ship smashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. The bodies of two men were found in a red pickup truck submerged in the icy waters of the Patapsco River. Rescuers pulled two workers from the water alive on Tuesday, and one was hospitalized.

Six workers on the bridge are presumed dead. The two men whose bodies were recovered on Wednesday were identified as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, of Baltimore, originally from Mexico, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, of nearby Dundalk, originally from Guatemala.

The workers came from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, according to a press conference.

Authorities have suspended efforts to recover bodies in the 50-foot-deep (15 m) waters surrounding the twisted ruins due to treacherous conditions.

At the time of the crash, a construction crew was fixing potholes on the bridge and eight people fell 185 feet (56 m) into the river where water temperatures were 47 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius). Two workers were rescued, one unharmed and one injured.

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

The ship also dropped its anchors to slow down, buying time to clear the bridge.

When did the Baltimore bridge collapse?

Shortly after 1 a.m. EDT (0500 GMT) on Tuesday, 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.

Less than a minute before impact, a first responder on emergency radio responded to the crew’s mayday call by sending officers to halt traffic onto the bridge.

Without their fast work, the scale of the disaster may have been far greater, even during the early morning hours when vehicular traffic is relatively light.

Tuesday’s disaster may be the worst U.S. bridge collapse since 2007, when a design error caused the I-35W bridge in Minneapolis to plunge into the Mississippi River, killing 13 people.

Why did the bridge collapse?

Bridges such as the one in Baltimore are classified as “fracture critical” by the federal government – meaning that if one portion of the bridge collapses, the rest of the structure falls. There are more than 16,800 such spans in the U.S., according to the Federal Highway Administration.

The head of the National Transportation Safety Board said the bridge lacked structural engineering redundancies common to newer spans, making it more vulnerable to catastrophic collapse.

The Key Bridge opened in 1977 – three years before a similar vessel collision of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa Bay, Florida, killed 35 people, and prompted bridge designers to implement better protections for foundation piers.

Who will pay for the damage and how much will it cost?

President Joe Biden promised to visit Baltimore soon and said he wanted the federal government to pay to rebuild the bridge.

The Transportation Department on Thursday awarded $60 million in “quick release” emergency relief funds to aid in clearing debris and begin the process of rebuilding. To replace the bridge, Congress would need to approve funding. After the bridge collapse in 2007 in Minnesota, Congress allocated $250 million.

Initial estimates put the cost of rebuilding the bridge at $600 million, according to economic analysis company IMPLAN.

Federal officials have told Maryland lawmakers the final cost of rebuilding the bridge could soar to at least $2 billion, Roll Call reported, citing a source familiar with the discussions.

Insurers could face billions of dollars in claims, analysts said, with one putting the cost at as much as $4 billion, which would make the tragedy a record shipping insurance loss.

How long will it take to rebuild?

Rebuilding could be a lengthy process and will depend on whether any of the remaining structure can be salvaged. It took five years to construct the original bridge from 1972-1977.

The closure of the port for just one month would cost Maryland $28 million in lost business, according to IMPLAN.

What ship hit the Baltimore Bridge?

The Dali was leaving Baltimore en route to Colombo, Sri Lanka, with 21 crew and two pilots on board.

The ship measures 948 feet (289 m) – as long as three football fields. It was stacked high with containers but was capable of carrying twice as much cargo. Safety investigators recovered the ship’s black box, which can give them the vessel’s position, speed, heading, radar, bridge audio, and radio communications as well as alarms.

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, Chile, found the vessel had “propulsion and auxiliary machinery” deficiencies, according to data on the public Equasis website, which provides information on ships.

The registered owner of the Singapore-flagged ship is Grace Ocean Pte Ltd, LSEG data show. Synergy Marine Group managed the ship, and Maersk chartered the vessel.

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 was four lanes wide and rose 185 feet (56 m) 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, the 17th largest in the country.

The flow of containers to Baltimore can likely be redistributed to bigger ports. 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.     

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Washington:

Diverted cargo and supply chain disruptions — businesses are rushing to avoid an economic hit following the collapse of a major bridge in Baltimore as a cargo ship slammed into it this week.

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, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg noted in a CBS interview.

“Right now you’ve got ocean shippers, the other ports and the cargo owners all working to figure out where to divert the ships that were headed that way,” he said.

Besides the 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, adding that the port handles over 50 million tons of foreign cargo last year.

“We’re talking about, you know, cars, heavy trucks, agricultural equipment,” Moore said.

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

Diverted cargo

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

While this involves rerouting, 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 next several 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

Certain sectors will be more impacted than others, 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, serving as a key link in many supply chains,” 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 higher transportation costs.

Among key auto companies importing through Baltimore are 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.

“At this time, no alternative plans have been finalized,” Mazda added.

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

But Sweet of Oxford Economics there will unlikely be broad-based shortages in the autos sector, with weaker demand for new vehicles and companies having 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.

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

The collapse of a major Baltimore bridge Tuesday is likely to shut down the port’s coal exports for as many as six weeks and block the transport of up to 2.5 million tons of coal, said Ernie Thrasher, chief executive officer of Xcoal Energy & Resources LLC.

The US exported about 74 million tons of coal last year, with Baltimore the second-largest terminal for the commodity. Plugging up a major coal hub threatens to disrupt global energy supply chains that have finally begun to work out the kinks left over from pandemic slowdowns.

“You’ll see some diversion to other ports but the other ports are pretty busy,” said Thrasher at Xcoal, a Pennsylvania coal trading firm that works with several suppliers. “There’s a limit on how much you can divert.”

Baltimore ships less than 2% of global seaborne coal so the bridge collapse will have little effect on global prices, Thrasher said. He added that the coal that moves out of Baltimore includes a lot of India-bound thermal coal, which is used for electricity generation.

“It will cause some disruption or chaos from a supply-chain standpoint,” Thrasher said. “But the big question is the impact on India more than any global impact.”

India’s annual coal demand totals more than 1 billion tons and the nation imported roughly 238 million tons of the fuel in the most recent fiscal year, of which about 6% was shipped from the US. Baltimore accounted for around 12 million tons of the imports, according to a research note from analytics firm Energy Aspects.

The Energy Aspects note also predicted marine traffic in Baltimore would be disrupted for two or three weeks at most. Some coal shipments may be temporarily rerouted to other ports including Norfolk, Virginia, the note added.

The supply disruption will affect Asian coal markets more than European markets because much of the coal exported from the port has high sulfur content and isn’t suitable for European power stations, according to a note from commodity analytics firm DBX.

Shares of companies that mine and move US coal fell Tuesday. Consol Energy Inc. saw its shares drop 6.8% and CSX Corp. shares fell 1.9%. Consol’s Marine Terminal in the area of the bridge is used to loading coal into large ocean-going ships and the terminal is served by CSX.

CSX said in a statement Tuesday that it had capacity to send more trains to the Baltimore coal terminals it serves before reaching space limits and that CSX customers should expect shipment delays. CSX is also working to identify alternatives to moving cargo through Baltimore, the statement said.

The European coal price traded slightly higher on Tuesday, up less than 1%.

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

New Delhi:

US President Joe Biden praised local authorities for their prompt action during the accident at Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, one of the nation’s busiest arteries that collapsed hours on Tuesday after being struck by a massive freight ship. He also made a special mention to the crew of the ship, all of whom were Indians.

“Personnel on board the ship were able to alert the Maryland Department of Transportation that they had lost control of their vessel, as you all know and have reported.  As a result, local authorities were able to close the bridge to traffic before the bridge was struck, which undoubtedly saved lives,” Biden said in his address.

“We’re incredibly grateful for the brave rescuers who immediately rushed to the scene,” the US President added.

On Tuesday, the Singapore-flagged container ship Dali, departing Baltimore with a full cargo en route to Sri Lanka, crashed into a concrete pier supporting the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.

Within seconds almost the entire bridge collapsed and plunged into what officials said was roughly 50 feet of frigid water below.

Moments before, the ship issued a Mayday call warning that it had lost power — prompting authorities to scramble to shut down traffic to the bridge, potentially saving lives.

CCTV footage shows the ship going dark twice in the minutes before the crash. A puff of smoke can also be seen before the collision.

While all 22 crew were unharmed and accounted for, six repairmen on the bridge have been missing. They were part of a construction crew working on repairing potholes on the bridge when it collapsed around midnight.

Biden also announced that the federal government will pay the full cost to rebuild the bridge.

Asked why the federal government should pick the tab if the ship and its operator were potentially to blame, he said, “That could be but we’re not going to wait for that to happen. We’re going to pay for it to get the bridge rebuilt and opened.”

Authorities have closed the port “until further notice” and traffic is being diverted away from the bridge as the rescue effort continues.

The collapse is expected to have a severe impact on the region. Traffic around Baltimore will be affected by the loss of the bridge, while shipping could also see long delays thanks to the debris now choking the waterway.

New Delhi:

The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore in the US has reverberated across the Indian coal and petcoke markets, sparking concerns about potential supply chain disruptions and price impacts.

According to S&P Global Commodity Insights, the incident, triggered by a vessel collision with a supporting pylon, has led to the suspension of navigation through Baltimore Harbor, a critical hub for coal exports.

India, a major importer of US thermal coal, is bracing for challenges in its supply chain following the bridge collapse.

According to a US-based trader, the incident is expected to restrict shipments from Arch Coal and create logistical hurdles for Indian importers.

A broker told S&P, “The incident will restrict NAPP shipments from Arch Coal and create numerous problems in the supply chain for India. Possible effect on thermal coal to Europe. The bigger impact is India. Watch the petcoke prices jump!”

The trader warned of potential price jumps in petcoke, a byproduct of the coal refining process, which could further strain India’s energy markets.

However, opinions within the Indian market are mixed regarding the extent of the pricing impacts.

An India-based trader expressed skepticism about significant disruptions, pointing out that major suppliers like Consol and Arch had not declared force majeure.

Nevertheless, concerns persist about the potential delays in coal shipments and the consequent strain on India’s energy sector.

India’s reliance on imported coal is significant, and any disruptions in the global supply chain can have far-reaching consequences.

The Indian trader said, “The authorities will take 6-7 days to assess how much debris is there from the incident and how much draft is available because if the draft is low then it could be a problem. The authorities may take 10-15 days to clear out the debris, so it means no ship movement during this period.”

The port of Baltimore, a key loading location for US thermal coal exports, plays a crucial role in meeting India’s energy demands.

With the suspension of navigation through Baltimore Harbor, alternative routes and logistical arrangements will need to be explored to ensure a steady supply of coal to India.

While some market participants anticipate short-term price fluctuations in response to the incident, others believe that the overall impact on coal prices may be limited if the waterway is cleared within a reasonable timeframe.

Nevertheless, the situation remains fluid, and Indian stakeholders are closely monitoring developments to assess the potential implications for energy markets.

As authorities work to assess and clear the debris from the collapsed bridge, Indian coal and petcoke importers are bracing for potential disruptions in their supply chains.

With India’s energy security at stake, attention is focused on finding alternative solutions to mitigate the impact of the Baltimore bridge collapse on the country’s energy sector.

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