Bridge collapse in Baltimore | Start of operations to reopen the port

(Baltimore) Cranes began arriving in Baltimore, Maryland, on Thursday as part of efforts to clear debris from the collapsed bridge, with officials warning that reopening the port, important to the U.S. economy, will take a long time.

These machines will have to remove the twisted steel remains of the Francis Scott Key bridge, used every day by tens of thousands of vehicles, and which collapsed on Tuesday like a house of cards, after being hit by a container ship , blocking the entrance to Baltimore Harbor.

The Army Corps of Engineers is “moving the largest crane on the East Coast to Baltimore to help us,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore told reporters Thursday evening.

“Before we can do the lifting, we have to figure out how to cut the bridge into pieces of the right size so that we can lift them out of the water using a crane,” explained the rear admiral of the Coast Guard, Shannon Gilreath.

“It is also the resting place of four fathers, four brothers, four sons,” declared Tom Perez at the White House during an interview with the American channel MSNBC.

The bodies of two of the six missing workers were found on Wednesday.

Operations to find the four other bodies were interrupted because the authorities considered it too dangerous to send divers to the accident site.

“The water is so dark and the debris so dense that in most cases our divers can’t see beyond 30 to 60 cm,” Moore said.

“We are incredibly sensitive to the idea that this is also the resting place of four fathers, four brothers, four sons,” Tom Perez, a senior White House official, told MSNBC earlier during the day.

“Emergency Assistance Fund”

The four men, all Latin American immigrants, are believed to have been killed after the Dalía container ship 300 meters long and 48 meters wide, got stuck in a bridge pier due to propulsion problems.

They were part of a team of eight workers working at night to repair the road. Two of them were rescued shortly after the bridge collapsed.

Area residents participated in a vigil at a nearby park Thursday morning, local media reported, while Baltimore City Hall launched a fundraiser to support the victims’ families.

As for reconstruction, it “is not going to take hours, nor days, nor weeks”, also warned the governor of the state of Maryland, where Baltimore is located, referring to “a very long road to go” before returning to normal.

Maryland asked the federal government for an initial envelope of $60 million, an appeal quickly heard by the government.

The US Department of Transportation announced Thursday the “rapid release” of this amount in “emergency assistance funds” to Maryland.

“Substantial loss”

This sum should “help Maryland begin urgent work” and will be followed by other funds “as reconstruction progresses,” explained Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

“No one will ever forget the shocking images of a container ship hitting the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse and the tragic deaths of six people,” he added, in a White House statement.

After the tragedy, President Joe Biden pledged that the federal administration would cover the entire cost of rebuilding the bridge.

Due to this accident, maritime transport remains suspended, with the Port of Baltimore, which generates more than 15,000 jobs, being the ninth largest in the country in terms of activity.

On Thursday, the head of the Lloyd’s of London insurance market warned that compensation from insurance companies for the accident could be the highest ever paid out in maritime transport.

“This should represent a substantial loss, probably the most significant” concerning maritime transport “but not outside of our parameters”, affirmed Bruce Carnegie-Brown on the channel CNBC.

Its reopening is “our priority,” said the coast guard rear admiral.

Upstream of Baltimore, the port authorities of New York and New Jersey plan to accommodate more goods in order to mitigate the consequences of this accident, the governors of these states announced Thursday in a joint press release.