Baltimore City Fire Boat 2 passes by the container ship Dali after it struck the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed into the Patapsco River in Baltimore, Maryland, U.S., Tuesday, March 26, 2024.
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Divers on Wednesday recovered the stays of two of six employees who went missing after being thrown into the Port of Baltimore from a highway bridge that collapsed into shipping lanes when a teetering freighter plowed into the structure, officials said Wednesday.
The bodies were recovered from the mouth of the Patapsco River a day after the massive container ship lost power and the ability to maneuver before plowing into a support pylon of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, sending most of the container ship into the water below.
Maryland State Police Col. Roland Butler said a red pickup truck carrying the bodies of the two men was present in about 25 feet (7.62 m) of water near the center of the collapsed bridge.
He also said authorities had suspended efforts to locate and get better more bodies from the depths attributable to increasingly treacherous conditions in a river riddled with wreckage. Butler said sonar images showed additional submerged vehicles “locked in” by the debris and superstructure of the bridge, making them difficult to succeed in.
The two men whose bodies were found 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.
Four more employees who were a part of the crew filling holes in the bridge surface remained missing and were presumed dead. Officials said the six employees also included immigrants from Honduras and El Salvador.
On Tuesday, rescuers pulled two employees out of the water alive, and one was taken to hospital.
The collapse of the bridge, the port’s fundamental traffic artery, forced the indefinite closure of the Port of Baltimore, one in every of the busiest on the U.S. East Coast, handling more cargo of cars and agricultural equipment than some other in the country.
Earlier Wednesday, a team of federal investigators boarded the idled freighter, still anchored in the harbor channel with a part of a mangled bridge hanging over the bow, to start interviewing the ship’s 22 crew members who remained on board.
During its first visit to the ship Tuesday evening, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) crew found key evidence that it hopes will help pinpoint the exact timeline of the accident – data from the ship’s “black box” recorder.
New details emerged Wednesday about the intense life-saving efforts in the minutes before the steel bridge collapsed, from recordings of radio calls made by authorities after alerting them that the Dali cargo ship was spinning uncontrolled toward Key Bridge.
“Stop all traffic on the Key Bridge. There’s a ship approaching that has just lost control,” someone says over the police radio minutes before the 1:30 a.m. disaster on Tuesday.
Although voices could be heard discussing next steps, including warning work crews to leave the bridge, one of them interrupted and said, “The whole bridge just collapsed!” The audio was recorded by Broadcastify, an open source audio streaming service.
The footage showed how authorities tried to save themselves from the disaster that sent six night-shift bridge repair workers to their deaths in the freezing waters of the port.
The Singapore-flagged, three-football-field-long container ship Dali reported a loss of power before impact and dropped anchor to slow the vessel, giving authorities barely enough time to stop traffic on the bridge and possibly preventing more loss of life.
In addition to halting port operations, the bridge collapse caused traffic chaos in Baltimore and the densely populated region.
Analysts say the accident could cost insurers multibillions in compensation, and one of them cited the costs up to $4 billionwhich would make the tragedy a record maritime insurance loss.
NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy said her team also began interviewing survivors and first responders.
The U.S. Coast Guard’s priorities were to restore waterways to navigation, stabilize the ship and recover it, Vice Adm. Peter Gautier said at a White House news conference. He said the bridge ruins had to be removed from the ship before it could be moved.
The wreck raised questions about the ship’s past operations, but Gautier said the ship had a “fairly good safety record.”
He added that of the 4,700 containers on the ship, 56 contain hazardous materials, but they don’t pose a threat to the public. During the disaster, two containers fell overboard, but they didn’t contain hazardous materials. Gautier added that the ship was carrying greater than 1.5 million gallons of fuel oil.
Documentation of the accident will involve photographing the ship and the 47-year-old bridge and collecting electronic logs. The NTSB will even investigate whether contaminated fuel played a role in the ship’s lack of power, Homendy said.
The Port of Baltimore handles more automotive cargo than some other U.S. port – greater than 750,000 vehicles in 2022, in accordance with the port, in addition to containers and bulk cargo ranging from sugar to coal.
Still, economists and logistics experts questioned whether the port closure would cause a major crisis in the U.S. supply chain or a significant increase in commodity prices attributable to the high capability of competing shipping hubs along the East Coast.
