BY LEA SKENE
BALTIMORE (AP) — A cargo ship lost power and rammed into a
major bridge in Baltimore early Tuesday, destroying the span in a matter of
seconds and plunging it into the river in a terrifying collapse that could
disrupt a vital shipping port for months. Six people were missing and presumed
dead.
The ship’s crew issued a mayday call moments before the
crash took down the
The ship struck one of the bridge’s supports, causing the
structure to collapse like a toy. A section of the span came to rest on the bow
of the vessel, which caught fire.
With the ship barreling toward the bridge at “a very, very
rapid speed,” authorities had just enough time to stop cars from coming over
the bridge, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said.
“These people are heroes,”
The crash happened in the middle of the night, long before
the busy morning commute on the bridge that stretches 1.6 miles (2.6 km) and
was used by 12 million vehicles last year.
The six people still unaccounted for were part of a
construction crew filling potholes on the bridge, said Paul Wiedefeld, the
state’s transportation secretary.
A senior executive at the company that employed the workers
said Tuesday afternoon that they were presumed dead, given the water’s depth
and the length of time since the crash.
Jeffrey Pritzker, executive vice president of Brawner
Builders, said the crew was working in the middle of the bridge when it came
down. No bodies have been recovered, and rescuers continued the search into the
late afternoon.
“This was so completely unforeseen,” Pritzker said. “We
don’t know what else to say. We take such great pride in safety, and we have cones
and signs and lights and barriers and flaggers.”
Jesus Campos, who has worked on the bridge for Brawner
Builders and knows members of the crew, said he was told they were on a break
and some were sitting in their trucks when the bridge went down.
“I know that a month ago, I was there, and I know what it
feels like when the trailers pass,”
Rescuers pulled two people out of the water. One person was
treated at a hospital and discharged hours later. Multiple vehicles also went
into the river, although authorities did not believe anyone was inside.
“It looked like something out of an action movie,”
A police dispatcher put out a call just before the collapse
saying a ship had lost its steering and asked officers to stop all traffic on
the bridge, according to
One officer who stopped traffic radioed that he was going to
drive onto the bridge to alert the construction crew. But seconds later, a
frantic officer said: “The whole bridge just fell down. Start, start whoever,
everybody ... the whole bridge just collapsed.”
On a separate radio channel for maintenance and construction
workers, someone said officers were stopping traffic because a ship had lost
steering. There was no follow-up order to evacuate, and 30 seconds later the
bridge fell and the channel went silent.
From 1960 to 2015, there were 35 major bridge collapses
worldwide due to ship or barge collision, according to the World Association
for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure.
The collapse is sure to create a logistical nightmare for
months, if not years, along the East Coast, shutting down ship traffic at the
“Losing this bridge will devastate the entire area, as well
as the entire East Coast,”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, speaking at a news
conference near the site, said it was too soon to estimate how long it will
take to clear the channel, which is about 50 feet (15 meters) deep.
“I do not know of a bridge that has been constructed to
withstand a direct impact from a vessel of this size,” he said.
Synergy Marine Group — which manages the ship, called the
Dali — confirmed the vessel hit a pillar of the bridge at about 1:30 a.m. while
in control of one or more pilots, who are local specialists who help guide
vessels safely into and out of ports. The ship is owned by Grace Ocean Private
Ltd.
Synergy said all crew members and the two pilots on board
were accounted for, and there were no reports of any injuries.
The ship was moving at 8 knots, roughly 9 mph (14.8 kph),
the governor said.
Jagged remnants of the bridge could be seen jutting up from
the water’s surface. The on-ramp ended abruptly where the span once began.
Donald Heinbuch, a retired chief with Baltimore’s fire
department, said he was startled awake by a deep rumbling that shook his house
for several seconds. “It felt like an earthquake,” he said.
He drove to the river’s edge and couldn’t believe what he
saw.
“The ship was there, and the bridge was in the water, like
it was blown up,” he said.
The bridge spans the
Wiedefeld said all vessel traffic into and out of the port
would be suspended until further notice, though the facility was still open to
trucks.
President Joe Biden said he planned to travel to
“This is going to take some time,” Biden said.
The Dali was headed from
Inspectors found a problem with the Dali’s machinery in
June, but a more recent examination did not identify any deficiencies,
according to the shipping information system Equasis.
Danish shipping giant Maersk said it had chartered the
vessel.
Last year, the
The head of a supply chain management company said Americans
should expect shortages of goods from the effect of the collapse on ocean
container shipping and East Coast trucking.
“It’s not just the
The collapse, though, is not likely to hurt worldwide trade
because Baltimore is not a major port for container vessels, but its facilities
are more important when it comes to goods such as farm equipment and autos,
said Judah Levine, head of research for global freight booking platform
Freightos.
___
Associated Press journalists around the world contributed to this report, including Sarah Brumfield, Rebecca Santana, Jake Offenhartz, Joshua Goodman, Ben Finley, Claudia Lauer, Brian Witte, Juliet Linderman, David McHugh, John Seewer, Michael Kunzelman and Mike Catalini.