The largest crane on the East Coast arrived in Baltimore this Friday at dawn to begin removing the remains of the bridge that collapsed in Baltimore when it was struck by a ship early Tuesday. Four Latino workers, of the six presumed dead in the collapse, remain missing in the waters of the Patapsco River, but cleanup efforts have paused the search for the bodies. The other two bodies were recovered in a sunken truck.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore said the massive crane, which arrived on a barge and can lift up to 1,000 tons of weight, will be one of at least two used to clear the canal of the bridge's twisted metal and concrete remains. Francis Scott Key when the freighter accidentally crashed into the structure.
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"The best minds in the world" are working on cleanup plans, Moore said. The Army Corps of Engineers for the Baltimore District told the governor that both its 32 military and Navy personnel (38 more) were mobilizing resources from around the country at record speed to clean the canal.
"This isn't just about Maryland," Moore said, "this is about the nation's economy. The port handles more cars and more farm equipment than any other port in the United States."
He warned of a long road to recovery, and said he was grateful to Joe Biden's administration for approving $60 million in immediate aid. The president said the federal government will pay the full cost of rebuilding the bridge.
"This job is not going to take hours. This job is not going to take days. This job is not going to take weeks," Moore said. "We have a very long road ahead," he added, "we have to remain focused on recovering the bodies, opening the canal to navigation, because the health of the state's economy depends on it; looking out for all those affected by this tragedy and "We need to rebuild the bridge."
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The devastation after the freighter lost power and crashed into a support pillar on Tuesday is immense: The crash caused the bridge to break and fall into the water within seconds. Authorities had just enough time to stop vehicle traffic, but not to alert the construction team.
At least eight people initially fell into the water, and only two of them were rescued in time. Divers on Wednesday found the bodies of two workers in a red pickup truck 25 feet deep in the river near the middle span of the bridge. On Thursday, local authorities paused the search for the other four missing people (who were left for dead on Tuesday evening) because, they said,
they have to start clearing the rubble first.
Judging by sonar scanners, they added, the vehicles where the bodies may be are encased in a “superstructure” of concrete and other debris.
The arduous task of recovering the bodies
Recovering the bodies and removing the debris is an extremely complex task, Moore explained: “On top of the ship there are 34,000 tons of steel. The water the divers work in is so dark and the debris is so dense that they often cannot see further than two feet and do the work by touch.”
The victims, who were part of a construction crew fixing potholes on the bridge, were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, Butler said. Regarding the difficult moment that families are going through, Moore said that he understood the terrible situation: "As the son of an immigrant, I know that this event touches our human side." He added that the state's lieutenant governor, Aruna Miller, is the first immigrant to occupy that position. position in Maryland.
[Baltimore bridge collapse highlights risks faced by Latino construction workers]
The bodies of Guatemalan Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, and Mexican Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, 35, were recovered Wednesday by divers inside a red pickup truck submerged in 25 feet of water near the central arch of the bridge.
Local authorities said at a news conference Thursday that efforts will now focus on recovering bodies and reopening the port. Huge barges carrying cranes headed toward Baltimore to begin the challenging work of removing twisted metal and concrete in an attempt to create a key transportation route blocked by the bridge's remains.
On Wednesday, Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of the Maryland State Police, said at a news conference that they needed to remove the twisted remains of the structure in order to reach the bodies of the four missing workers.
“Due to the superstructure surrounding what we believe to be the vehicles and the amount of concrete and debris, divers can no longer navigate or operate safely around that,” he said.
“We have exhausted all search efforts in the areas around this wreckage and based on sonar scans, we firmly believe the vehicles are encased in the superstructure and concrete that we tragically saw collapse,” Butler concluded.