The bodies of two construction workers were found in the cold waters of Baltimore harbor Wednesday, trapped in their red pick-up truck after a giant cargo ship hit the bridge they had been filling potholes on, causing a loud collapse.
Maryland police announced the sad discovery at a press conference, adding that sonar shows what they believe are more vehicles trapped within the concrete and twisted steel debris of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.
It is believed that six out of the eight-man construction crew died, with four bodies still missing.
Warning that it was not safe for divers to try to go into the wreckage, police told a press conference that they were shifting to a salvage operation, removing the superstructure and then sending divers back in to recover the rest of the bodies.
“Based on sonar scans, we firmly believe that the vehicles are encased in the superstructure and concrete that we tragically saw come down,” Colonel Roland Butler, the superintendent of Maryland’s state police, told a press conference.
Federal investigators also gave a detailed timeline of the tragedy based on preliminary findings from the ship’s voice data recorder.
Marcel Muise, lead investigator for the National Transportation Safety Board, told a separate press conference that the container ship Dali, about 1,000 feet (300 meters) long and piled high with cargo, left dock at 12:39 am Tuesday en route to Asia.
At 1:24, alarms began sounding on the ship with indications of power trouble and the pilot soon radioed the port authority that the vessel was headed for the bridge, requesting tug boats.
The call for help was heard by two Maryland Transportation Authority units on the bridge because of the roadwork, and they shut down all lanes of traffic, likely saving lives.
Muise told reporters that at 1:29 the voice data recorder captured “sounds consistent with the collision.”
Almost all of the steel structure, used by tens of thousands of drivers each day, collapsed within seconds, falling over the bow of the ship and blocking one of the busiest US trading ports.
The eight workers filling potholes on the highway directly above the oncoming ship had no chance to evacuate.
Butler named the two victims found Wednesday as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, a 35-year-old who lived in Baltimore but was originally from Mexico, and his 26-year-old colleague Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, who lived in the suburb of Dundalk but came from Guatemala.
They were found in 25 feet of water, he said.
Two others were pulled from the water alive in the moments after the collapse early Tuesday. One was uninjured, while the second was released from hospital Wednesday, Butler said.
Four more workers are presumed dead, vanished into the swirling currents and crumpled tangle of wrecked girders and pylons.
– ‘Hard-working’ men –
The vessel, which remained entangled in the debris Wednesday, was “stable,” Coast Guard Vice Admiral Peter Gautier told reporters at the White House, adding that the mostly Indian crew remained on board and were “very much engaged” in the investigation.
The NTSB stated that at the time of the accident, there were 23 crew members on the ship, including the two pilots.
The organization mentioned that the vessel contained 56 containers of dangerous materials, some of which were damaged when the bridge collapsed, causing a shiny layer on the water.
Gautier insisted that the ship did not pose a risk to the environment. He stated that two out of a total of 4,700 containers were lost overboard.
Authorities said the missing workers were from El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico.
Jesus Campos, a colleague of the eight workers employed by contractor Brawner Builders, described them as hard-working and modest men.
One of the individuals now presumed deceased was Miguel Luna, a father of three, as reported by the non-profit Casa, which provides services to immigrant communities.
According to Casa, Luna, who was from El Salvador, left for work at 6:30 pm on Monday and did not return.
His wife, Maria del Carmen Castellon, expressed to Telemundo 44 that she was deeply upset by the lack of information.
– Busy harbor blocked –
The ship had passed two international inspections in 2023, according to the maritime authority for Singapore, where the ship is registered. They added that a fault monitor gauge was repaired in June.
The Port of Baltimore ranks as the ninth-busiest major US port in terms of both foreign cargo handled and foreign cargo value. It directly supports over 15,000 jobs and nearly 140,000 more.
The impact on supply chains “clearly will not be minor,” said US Transport Secretary Pete Buttigieg, mentioning that it's “too early” to determine when the port might reopen.
“Rebuilding will not be quick, or easy, or cheap,” he warned.
Agence France-Presse
