Baltimore: The US Coast Guard said on Wednesday that rescuers had given up on finding further survivors of the collapsed Baltimore bridge. Instead, they were focusing on locating the missing people’s bodies and learning more about the cause of the container ship’s collision with the bridge.
According to the head of the agency, US federal safety inspectors have also retrieved the black box from the freight ship that collided with the bridge.
In order to look for six workers who are missing and now believed dead, search divers were scheduled to return to the waters surrounding the mangled remains of the bridge in Baltimore Harbour.
One of the busiest ports on the US Eastern Seaboard, the Port of Baltimore, has been forced to close indefinitely due to the disaster, and the surrounding area is experiencing severe traffic congestion.
Investigators retrieve the freighter’s “black box” from the harbor in Baltimore, and the ship’s safety record is being examined.
On Tuesday night, eighteen hours after the workmen were hurled from the Francis Scott Key Bridge into the icy waters at the mouth of the Patapsco River, the search for them was halted as the likelihood of their survival dwindled.
Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath of the Coast Guard stated during a briefing, “We do not believe that we’re going to find any of these individuals alive.”
Reduced visibility and increasingly dangerous currents in the wreckage-filled canal made it too dangerous for Maryland State Police and US Coast Guard authorities to continue searching the river overnight.
On Tuesday, rescuers extracted two workmen alive from the water; one of them was taken to the hospital. The Mexican Consulate in Washington states that workers from Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador were among the six people who are thought to have died.
All eight were reportedly working as pothole patchers on the road surface of Key Bridge when the container ship Dali, flying the Singapore flag and sailing from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, collided with one of the bridge’s support pylons at around 1:30 in the morning, according to officials.
Shortly before colliding, the 289-meter ship reported losing propulsion. It then lowered its anchor to slow down, allowing emergency personnel enough time to stop traffic on the bridge. According to experts, that action probably avoided a greater death toll.
It was unclear if officials made an effort to warn the construction workers before the collision.
The safety record of the ship
The Baltimore accident brought the ship’s safety record to light. When the ship attempted to leave the North Sea container terminal in 2016, it struck a pier in the port of Antwerp, Belgium.
Data on the public Equasis website, which offers ship information, indicates that “propulsion and auxiliary machinery” issues were discovered during a 2023 inspection conducted in Chile.
However, a statement from Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority stated that the ship cleared two independent foreign-port inspections in June and September of 2023. It stated that after the vessel’s June 2023 inspection, a malfunctioning fuel pressure gauge was fixed before it left the port.
Social media footage showed the ship striking the Key Bridge in the dark, with headlights from passing cars apparent as it plunged into the sea and caught fire.
There were no missing personnel among the ship’s 22 crew members. On Tuesday, President Joe Biden declared his desire for the federal government to foot the bill for the bridge’s reconstruction and pledged to visit Baltimore as soon as feasible.
