Baltimore Key Bridge collapse live updates: 2 bodies recovered; NTSB to interview cargo ship pilots today
Follow along for live updates after a container ship crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Police have recovered the bodies of two construction workers killed in the collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge. The cargo ship Dali had collided with the bridge, causing it to collapse. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is set to interview the two pilots who were on the Dali at the time of the crash. The recovery efforts are now focusing on removing debris from the bridge that prevents divers from accessing additional victims. The NTSB chair, Jennifer Homendy, stated that the bridge's condition was satisfactory and the recovery process will resume once the cleanup is completed. The remaining construction workers, along with those presumed dead, came to the U.S. from Mexico and Central American countries.
Опубликовано : 4 недели назад от Yahoo News Staff в Travel
The cargo ship Dali sits in the water Wednesday amid the wreckage of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge. (Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images)
Police said Wednesday that they had found the bodies of two people killed when Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed early Tuesday morning. Authorities said eight workers were fixing potholes on the bridge when the cargo ship Dali lost power and struck it, causing it to collapse. Two of the workers were rescued.
At a press conference in Baltimore on Wednesday evening, state officials said they were moving from a recovery effort to a cleanup operation, removing debris that is preventing divers from accessing the area where additional victims are believed to be. Once the cleanup is complete, the search for bodies will resume.
Jennifer Homendy, the National Transportation Safety Board chair, said investigators on Thursday are planning to interview the two pilots who were aboard the Dali at the time of the crash.
The 1.6-mile bridge, named after the poet who wrote “The Star-Spangled Banner,” spans a major thoroughfare of East Coast shipping. It’s also the entryway to the port, which is the largest port in the U.S. for specialized cargo like trucks, tractors and trailers.
• None Brothers of missing construction worker still clinging to hope Carlos Suazo speaks with a reporter on the phone in Dundalk, Md., Wednesday. (Brian Witte/AP) The brother of Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval — one of the construction workers who are now presumed dead after the bridge collapse — told CNN on Wednesday that he is praying for a "miracle." “We still have faith until this moment, God grant the miracle, it would be beautiful,” Martin Suazo, one of Maynor's seven siblings, said. “We still have hope, I know that time is our worst enemy.” Another brother, Carlos Suazo, told the Associated Press that the 38-year-old had been working in the United States for 18 years but “always dreamed of, in his old age, retiring peacefully in Honduras.” Per CNN, the family’s priority is to recover his body before "telling their 72-year-old mother back in Honduras the painful news."
• None 'This Will Take Time' That's the headline on the front page of today's Baltimore Sun, which reports that the effort to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge could take anywhere from two to 15 years.
• None What we know about the crash so far The damaged deck of the Dali cargo vessel in Baltimore. (Mike Segar/Reuters)
• None Police divers recovered the bodies of two victims from Tuesday’s bridge collapse.
• None The two construction workers were found in 25 feet of water, trapped inside their pickup truck.
• None Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said there was no credible evidence that terrorism was involved in the incident.
• None The construction workers who died, as well as the others who are still missing and presumed dead, came to work in the U.S. from Mexico and other Central American countries.
• None Some of the eight workers on the bridge at the time of the accident were employed by the Maryland company Brawner Builders.
• None Debris from the bridge impeded divers from continuing their search for victims on Wednesday
• None President Biden instructed his staff to “move heaven and earth” to rebuild the bridge, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters.
• None Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigie indicated the effort could take time. “Rebuilding will not be quick or easy or cheap,” he said. “ut we will get it done.”
• None Maryland lawmakers are working on legislation to provide emergency assistance to port workers whose jobs will be impacted by the loss of the bridge.
• None Grace Ocean Private, the owner of the Dali, could face a record payout from the disaster.
• None The NTSB said 56 containers of hazardous material were on the ship when it ran into the bridge. “Some of the containers were breached,” NTSB chair Jennifer Homendy said.
• None Jennifer Homendy, chair of the NTSB, said agency investigators are scheduled to conduct interviews Thursday with the two pilots who were aboard the Dali at the time of the crash.
• None Homendy: 'This bridge was in satisfactory condition' NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy said Wednesday that the Key Bridge was in "satisfactory condition" prior to the crash that caused it to collapse on Tuesday. She said the bridge's last fracture critical inspection was conducted in May 2023.
• None NTSB provides update on investigation of bridge collapse At a press briefing Wednesday evening, Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, provided an update on the agency's investigation of the ship crash that caused the Key Bridge to collapse Tuesday morning. Homendy said investigators have confirmed that there were 21 crew members and two pilots aboard the vessel at the time of the accident. Homendy said that the ship was carrying 56 containers of hazardous materials, mostly corrosives, flammables and lithium ion batteries. “Some of the containers were breached,” she said, adding that authorities had been notified.
• None What the Baltimore Key Bridge collapse means for shipping companies Flexport founder and CEO Ryan Petersen joined Yahoo Finance Live on Wednesday to talk about the potential ramifications for shipping companies now that the port is closed. Petersen highlights that shipping companies are "working overtime ... to figure out what to do." He explains that the ship collision will inevitably lead to delays in cargo shipments, drawing parallels to the Suez Canal where cargo remained in "litigation limbo" for over a year. Petersen emphasizes that new routes will need to be determined and "extra coordination" will be required to facilitate the transition of cargo transport from sea to land, describing the situation as "a scramble" to deliver customers' cargo. While Petersen estimates that rebuilding the bridge itself could take "several years," he expresses optimism that the restoration of the shipping channel might be a more manageable task, potentially taking "a matter of weeks or months." However, he calls this an "adaptive" situation, with most cargo likely to be rerouted to the West Coast and price increases likely to occur. Read more from Yahoo Finance's Brad Smith and Angel Smith.
• None At Wednesday evening's press conference in Baltimore, Col. Roland Butler Jr. of the Maryland State Police said that two bodies had been recovered at the site of Tuesday night's collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge. Butler said dive teams "made a tragic finding" shortly before 10 a.m., spotting a red pickup truck in 25 feet of water. "Divers recovered two victims of this tragedy trapped within the vehicle," Butler said. Butler identified them as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, of Mexico, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, of Guatemala, and said that their families had been notified. The Baltimore Banner was the first to report that the bodies of two people had been recovered at the scene.
• None Maryland Gov. Wes Moore said at a Wednesday evening news conference that efforts to find survivors from Tuesday's collapse of Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge had ended. "Today, we transitioned from search and rescue to recovery," Moore said. Moore said the impact of the collapse would be profound. "The collapse of the Key Bridge is not just a Maryland crisis," Moore said. "The collapse of the Key Bridge is a global crisis."
• None Just how big was the ship that struck the Key Bridge? This graphic from the Associated Press offers a stark visualization of the size of the ship that hit the Key Bridge on Tuesday, causing it to collapse.
• None Maryland is still under a state of emergency a day after the bridge collapse as the state works "to quickly deploy federal resources from the Biden Administration." On Wednesday, Maryland Gov. Wes Moore visited the site of the crash on a Coast Guard ship to assess the damage, according to CNN. "This is part of the Governor’s efforts to continue the strong working relationship with the Coast Guard along with our federal partners, thank first responders working on the scene, and to learn more about the events that took place,” the spokesperson added. The state flag was also lowered to half-staff to honor the victims of the bridge collapse. On Wednesday, Moore posted a clip on X where he addressed Marylanders directly during a Tuesday press conference. "But Maryland, we will get through this. Because that is the Maryland spirit and that's what Maryland is made of. We are Maryland tough and we are Baltimore strong." He also tweeted pictures of downtown Baltimore billboards displaying the same message, "Maryland tough. Baltimore strong." Moore is slated to speak at another press conference at 5:30 p.m. ET Wednesday. We will get through this because we are Maryland Tough and Baltimore Strong. pic.twitter.com/CMLm1XexSd
• None Here's how to help the families of the 6 victims presumed dead after the bridge collapse A GoFundMe has been started to help raise money for the families of the six victims who are presumed dead, as search and rescue efforts turned to recovery efforts Wednesday following Tuesday's bridge collapse. The Latino Racial Justice Circle, a nonprofit organization promoting community development through immigrant integration, started the GoFundMe to raise a total of $60,000 — or $10,000 per family, as reported by WUSA9. As of late Wednesday afternoon, that goal was surpassed by over $15,000. Jack Murphy is the owner of Brawner Builders, the company that employed the six men who are unaccounted for. The New York Times reported that he shared the link to the fundraiser, saying, "Unfortunately, this tragic event was completely unforeseen and was not something that we could imagine would happen."
• None 3 Mexicans were working on the bridge when it collapsed, Mexico says; 2 are among the presumed dead Three of the eight workers fixing the Key Bridge before the collapse are Mexican, officials said on Wednesday. Two of the workers are presumed dead. "After the unfortunate accident, the Consular Section of the Mexican Embassy in the United States managed to establish that, of the eight workers, three are of Mexican nationality," Mexico's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement, according to a translation. "One of them, originally from Michoacán, was rescued alive and is recovering satisfactorily from his injuries. The other two, originally from Veracruz and Michoacán, remain missing." The Mexican government also confirmed that Rafael Laveaga Rendón, the country's regional consul, traveled to Baltimore to support the workers' families.
• None How long could it take to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge? Rebuilding the Francis Scott Key Bridge could take as little as two years — or it could take as many as 15 years, according to the Baltimore Sun. Benjamin Schafer, a structural engineer who specializes in steel structures and is an engineering professor at Johns Hopkins University, told the Sun that in order to rebuild the bridge, funding needs to be secured, a visual design needs to be decided on, materials need to be selected and engineering questions need to be worked out. Clearing the debris in the river will also be an obstacle in and of itself. “As much as this is a tragedy, and as much as we’re all going to be terribly inconvenienced, it’s people’s lives and jobs in Baltimore if that port stays closed for very long,” Schafer said. Meanwhile, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg restated during a Wednesday White House press briefing that the rebuilding process will be complex and potentially expensive. “Rebuilding will not be quick or easy or cheap, but we will get it done,” he said.
• None NTSB to hold media briefing at 8 p.m. ET National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy will brief the media at 8 p.m. ET. Earlier Wednesday, Homendy said the NTSB recovered the data recorder — otherwise known as the "black box" — from the Dali cargo vessel. A team of investigators boarded the ship on Tuesday night to gather evidence for their investigation, she said. The NTSB is building a timeline of events that led up to the crash on Tuesday, which caused the Francis Scott Key Bridge to collapse.
• None 10 ships are stuck in Port of Baltimore, officials say Container ships anchored in Chesapeake Bay off Annapolis, Md., on Wednesday (Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images) Ten ships are stuck in the Port of Baltimore behind the collapsed bridge, according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics. The vessels include three bulk carriers, three naval vessels, two cargo ships, one vehicle carrier and one oil/chemical tanker. Additionally, 12 ships have dropped anchor, and one vehicle carrier is in the port "but outside the bridge." On Tuesday, Port of Baltimore authorities announced that vessel traffic in and out of the port was suspended indefinitely. But the port remains open for trucks to be processed in the marine terminal.
• None "To look at a skyline that doesn't even look familiar — that Key Bridge has been there ever since I'd been born. And so this is surreal, looking up and not seeing it there anymore."
• None 3 ships have hit bridges in different countries in the past 3 months. Should we be worried? Despite modern regulations and design codes in place, experts say there's a long way to go to improve bridges that were made for smaller ships in a different era. A deadly bridge collapse in Baltimore. A bridge in southern China sliced in half. Parts of a bridge cutting through the hull of a massive ship in Argentina. These events all happened within the first three months of this year — and all after collisions with large commercial ships. These incidents, and the toll — with at least five killed in China, and six still missing in Baltimore — have highlighted what experts say is the urgent need to improve or protect old bridges to accommodate larger modern vessels. Read more from CNN here.
• None Could fenders have prevented the bridge collapse? Cargo ship stuck under part of the structure of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after the ship collided with it. (Steve Helber/AP) When it comes to bridge engineering, protective barriers can help redirect or prevent a ship from crashing into the bridge's supports. The New York Times reports that the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed on Tuesday, did not appear to have an "obvious fender system." Some engineers told the Times that the collapse might have been prevented if it had more effective barriers in place. This could be anything from pyramids of rocks to padded concrete rings surrounding the supports.
• None The Dali cargo ship was a Singapore-flagged vessel. (Maryland National Guard/Handout via Reuters) The Transportation Safety Investigation Bureau in Singapore will conduct its own investigation into the crash that took place in Baltimore on Tuesday, officials in the Southeast Asian country announced on Wednesday. The Dali cargo ship that crashed into the Key Bridge was a Singapore-flagged vessel. Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore authorities said they're "deeply saddened" by the crash, and will support U.S. investigators with their probes. The agency said its goal is not to determine who is liable, but to understand what happened in order to prevent future disasters.
Темы: Traffic