A few hours after the freighter 'Dali' crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the city of
Baltimore,
unknowns persist about what happened early this Tuesday, on one of the busiest bridges in the state of Maryland.
At least seven people remain missing, two have been rescued and rescue teams are working against the clock in search of possible survivors of a tragedy that
could add more victims.
The port of Baltimore, one of the largest and busiest on the planet, was closed until further notice, but loading and unloading trucks remain operational.
When and how did the freighter crash happen?
The accident took place around 01:30 local time (2:30 in Argentina), when the freighter 'Dali' collided with that bridge
built in 1977
and caused it to collapse.
The Secretary of Transportation of Maryland, Paul Wiedefeld, indicated to the press that
the low temperature of the water (about 4°C),
its depth, about 15 meters,
and the darkness when the event occurred
made rescue work difficult.
The governor of Maryland, Wes Moore,
declared a state of emergency
due to the landslide, which blocked parts of the I-95 route, the most important route in the eastern United States.
How many people could have died?
At 8:30 a.m. local time (9:30 a.m. in Buenos Aires), a helicopter and three coast guard boats searched the Patapsco River for the at least seven officially confirmed missing persons.
Two people were rescued by emergency services and the number of victims may be
more than twenty,
since
there were maintenance teams on the bridge at the time of its collapse.
The Dali freighter seen from the front.
Photo: Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images/AFP
The authorities indicated in a press conference that federal, local and state agents participate in the device deployed to confront what the mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott, described as a "tragedy" and confirmed that
the radars identified cars under water.
The area is closed off and the press
can only access about 1.6 kilometers away
from the place.
The Singapore company
Synergy Group, which operates the ship
, confirmed that none of the ship's 22 crew members were injured and assured that it is collaborating with the authorities to determine the causes of the incident.
Could it have been intentional?
Although the causes of what happened are still unknown, the Baltimore Police
see no signs of a terrorist attack
or an intentional event.
The FBI is part of the
open investigation, but this does not imply that there are signs of a terrorist attack.
"In any type of incident like this he would be involved," Wiedefeld said.
Baltimore Police see no signs of a terrorist attack or an intentional event.
Photo: Jim Watson/AFP
US President Joe Biden was informed of the collapse and is coordinating with Maryland state authorities and federal agencies, the White House reported.
The federal agency in charge of investigating transportation accidents, NTSB, will investigate what problems or failures led to this serious accident.
Where it happened
The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore is the largest bridge in this city in the state of Maryland, it has a length of 2,632 meters and more than 11 million vehicles pass through it per year.
Immortalized by the series 'The Wire'
, the bridge was named in honor of the
poet Francis Scott Key
, author of the lyrics of the American anthem, and about 31,000 vehicles pass through it
daily.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge began construction in 1972 and was inaugurated on March 23, 1977. Photo: ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP
Its construction began in 1972 and it was inaugurated on March 23, 1977. The structure
crosses the lower part of the
Patapsco River between Hawkins Point and Sollers Point and the I-695 highway (Baltimore Beltway) runs through it.
The bridge that collapsed is, according to the Historic Sites organization, heir to the one built between 1833 and 1843 with stone pillars, demolished in 1915, and the one that replaced it, a concrete arch inaugurated in 1923 already with the name of Francis Scott Key because the artist lived in a nearby area at the beginning of the 19th century.
Originally the bridge was known as 'Outer Harbor Crossing'.
Baltimore, an important seaport even before the American Revolution, located on the Chesapeake Bay,
is the most populated city in the state of Maryland,
with just over 600,000 inhabitants in the urban core and 2,700,000 in its metropolitan area. .
With information from EFE