Rescuers worked hard on Wednesday to find the bodies of six workers presumed dead in the icy waters of the port of Baltimore, on the American east coast, the day after the spectacular collapse of a bridge hit by a carrier. containers.
The bodies of two men, aged 35 and 26, were found by divers in the morning inside a red van submerged about 7.6 meters deep near the central span of the bridge, the government said. Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of the Maryland State Police, during an evening news conference.
The victims, construction workers, came from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Mr. Butler said.
According to sonar scans, authorities “strongly believe” that the other vehicles with victims found themselves embedded in the superstructures and concrete of the collapsed bridge, he added.
All means to find them have been exhausted, he said.
Difficult searches
Divers scoured the waters in “dangerous conditions” to try to find the victims, Maryland Governor Wes Moore said.
Rescuers are struggling with “freezing temperatures, high tide, strong winds, pieces of twisted metal,” he said. In the mist and cold, coast guard and police boats were deployed in large numbers, very close to the debris and the damaged container ship.
Miguel Luna, a Salvadoran father of three children, left for work late Monday and never returned, said Casa, an association helping migrants.
His wife, Maria del Carmen Castellon, told Telemundo 44 television that she felt “devastated” by waiting for news.
Governor Wes Moore stressed that he had spoken to the families of the victims and promised that he would “exhaust all options to facilitate their grieving”.
“Terrible accident”
The toll of this “terrible accident”, in the words of President Joe Biden, would have been worse if the ship, which suffered a “momentary loss of propulsion”, had not managed to launch a distress call.
This alert allowed the authorities to interrupt in extremis part of the road traffic. The preliminary investigation shows that it was an accident, according to the authorities.
Impressive CCTV footage shows container ship MV Dalí deviate from its course and hit a pile of the bridge inaugurated in 1977, causing several arches to collapse into the port.
In these videos, we see lights from maintenance vehicles on the bridge, before it buckles and falls apart.
The crew, unharmed, had tried in vain to slow the ship’s course by dropping anchor.
Maryland’s governor promised a “full and thorough investigation.”
Jennifer Homendy, head of the US Transportation Safety Agency (NTSB), said a team had recovered the container ship’s data recorders, a crucial element for the investigation.
Reconstruction
Joe Biden pledged that the bridge, which bears the name of the poet who wrote the words of the American national anthem, would be rebuilt, admitting that it would take time. Wanting to get ahead of the insurers, the president said he wanted “the federal state to pay the entire cost of reconstruction”.
Indeed, the issue is economic: this four-lane bridge, 2.6 km long, is located on a crucial north-south axis for the economy of the east coast of the United States.
In addition, with access to the port blocked by debris, maritime transport there is “suspended until further notice,” authorities said. The Port of Baltimore is the ninth busiest in the country and generates more than 15,000 jobs.
US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg spoke of a “major and prolonged impact on supply chains”.
The MV Dalí is a recent container ship, 300 meters long and 48 meters wide, flying the Singaporean flag, and which was sailing towards Sri Lanka. It was operated by shipping company Synergy Group and chartered by Danish shipping giant Maersk.
Singapore’s port authority said on Wednesday that it had passed two inspections in 2023 and that a faulty fuel pressure monitoring gauge was repaired in June.
Chilean port authorities reported a defect in the ship’s machinery in 2023, an anomaly quickly repaired by the shipowner, according to the Chilean navy.
