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Bridge Down: Cargo Ship's Mayday Ends in a Disaster in Baltimore

Bridge Down: Cargo Ship's Mayday Ends in a Disaster in Baltimore
photo: Civil Engineering Discoveries / X (Twitter)/Collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, Baltimore, US
27 / 03 / 2024

Since yesterday, the world's attention has been focused on the US city of Baltimore, where a cargo ship chartered by Maersk crashed into the largest local bridge, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, destroying it to the ground.

Sources: Google (image), Baltimore Fire Chief, MarineTraffic, Maryland Transportation Authority, StreamTime LIVE, This Morning; Graphic: Lou Robinson and Henrik Pettersson, CNN

The container ship Dali was sailing from the port of Baltimore to Sri Lanka under the flag of Singapore. Prior to the collision, the ship reportedly sent a mayday signal and lost momentum, crashing into one of the pylons of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, named after the author of the US national anthem, causing the structure to collapse.

Video footage captured by surveillance cameras shows the ship's lights going out several times before the collision, as well as smog coming from the vessel.

The crew of the vessel consisted of 22 people, none of whom were injured, but there were 8 workers on the bridge at the time, engaged in repair work. Two of them were rescued from the water, while six others are missing and presumed dead, as, according to the Coast Guard, the low water temperature (about 8 degrees Celsius) and the long time that has passed since the accident leave no hope that these workers could have survived.

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