BALTIMORE — Rescuers are searching for at least six missing people after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed in Baltimore early Tuesday morning. Two people have already been rescued from the water, and one was hospitalized. There is no update on their current condition.
Around 1:30 a.m., a cargo ship leaving the Port of Baltimore struck the bridge causing a "catastrophic collapse," according to Secretary of the Maryland Department of Transportation (MDOT) Paul Wiedefeld.
"At this time this is an active search and rescue mission," Wiedefled said. "We know there were individuals on the bridge at the time of the collapse, working on the bridge."
Wiedefeld said all eight people he referenced were MDOT contractors. He does not have any information about the number of cars that may have gone into the water, or the number of people inside. At this time, there is no accurate count of the total number of missing people due to the bridge collapse.
There were 22 people aboard the ship that hit the bridge, including the two pilots. Everyone on the ship is accounted for, and there have no reports of injuries. Crew members are staying on board the ship for the time being.
Authorities are conducting a search and rescue mission for survivors, but frigid water temperatures could complicate those efforts. Anyone who may have fallen into the water has been in the water at least nine hours.
More than 30,000 vehicles traveled over Key Bridge every day, and cargo vessels carried millions of tons of cargo underneath every month.
In a statement Tuesday, President Biden said the Army Corps of Engineers was working to clear the shipping channel and reopen the Port of Baltimore to shipping traffic as quickly as possible.
"It handled a record-amount of cargo last year. It's the top port in America for both imports and exports of automobiles and light trucks. Around 850,000 vehicles go through that port every single year, and we're going to get it up and running again as soon as possible — 15,000 jobs depend on it," Biden said.
Live data from ship-tracking service Marine Traffic shows at least four cargo ships were docked at Baltimore Harbor as of 1:30 p.m. Tuesday, including a Swedish vehicle carrier with a capacity of up to 7,800 vehicles. Another 12 vessels destined for Baltimore Harbor were anchored in Chesapeake Bay off the coast of Kent Island.
The Dali was headed from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka, and flying under a Singapore flag, according to data from Marine Traffic. The container ship is about 985 feet (300 meters) long and about 157 feet (48 meters) wide, according to the website.
According to the ship-tracking service VesselFinder, the Dali was previously involved in a collision with a pier in Antwerp, Belgium, in 2016 that cause significant damage to the ship. No injuries were reported in connection with that collision.
The DALI had been chartered by the Danish shipping company Maersk. No Maersk crew or personnel were onboard.
From 1960 to 2015, there have been 35 major bridge collapses worldwide due to ship or barge collision, with a total of 342 people killed, according to a 2018 report from the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure. Eighteen of those collapses happened in the United States
The Associated Press contributed to this reporting.
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