By Nicole Acevedo —
NBC News
The six workers who were presumed dead after the Baltimore bridge collapse are from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico, according to their co-workers and family members, illustrating the dangers Hispanic workers face in an industry where that predominate: construction.
Eight workers were fixing potholes in the roadway of the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday when a massive cargo ship experiencing technical problems accidentally crashed into one of the columns, causing a span of the bridge to collapse into the Patapsco River.
Two workers who survived were pulled from the water, the bodies of two others (Alejandro Fernandez Fuentes, a 35-year-old Mexican, and Dorlian Castillo Cabrera, a 26-year-old Guatemalan) were recovered from a truck submerged 25 feet deep in the central part of the bridge. and the search continues for the remaining four.
"The hope we have is to be able to see the body," Fredy Suazo, brother of Maynor Suazo, one of the missing construction workers believed to have died, told NBC News. "We want to see him, find him, know if he is dead because we don't know anything."
The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration considers construction "a high-hazard industry" in which workers are exposed to serious hazards, such as falling from roofs, being struck by heavy construction equipment, and be injured—or killed—by unprotected machinery.
Miguel Luna and Maynor Suazo.Family photos
Latinos are more exposed to these dangers as they represent approximately one-third of the
country's
construction workers .
Maynor Suazo, from Honduras, and Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, are the only missing construction workers who have been identified. The names of the remaining missing workers have not been released.
Jesús Campos, an employee of Brawner Builders, the company that hired the workers on the bridge, said he had worked alongside Suazo and Luna. He described them to Telemundo 44 as "fathers and people who come to work to earn a living."
Suazo lived in the United States for almost two decades and began working for the construction company several months ago, according to his brother Fredy, who described Suazo, a father of two, as a smiling and pleasant man who “always fought for the well-being of the family".
“You come to this country to fulfill your dreams and sometimes that dream is not fulfilled,” said Fredy. “And for a tragedy like this to happen to us, can you imagine?”
[They resume the search for the Latino workers killed in the collapse of the Baltimore bridge: this is what their families ask for]
The construction and extraction industries recorded the second highest number of deaths in 2022, with
1,056 deaths,
followed by transportation and material movement workers, according to the most recent data from the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics. (BLS) published in December.
A rugged industry
According to the BLS, at least 423 of these workers died due to falls, slips or trips.
The majority of these deaths, at least 286, occurred among Hispanic workers.
The death rate for construction and extraction workers rose from 12.3 deaths per 100,000 full-time workers in 2021 to 13.0 a year later.
According to the BLS, a total of 316 foreign-born Hispanic construction workers died from workplace injuries in 2022.
Other tragedies involving Hispanic construction workers have already occurred this year.
In another Maryland city, about 10 miles west of Baltimore, at least three Latinos were among six construction workers killed by two drivers while doing road work in Woodlawn over the weekend.
[The impressive video of the Baltimore bridge collapsing and the path of the ship before hitting it]
Two months ago in Idaho, three construction workers, two of whom were from Guatemala, died in a building collapse in the city of Boise.
"Part of the very fabric" of Baltimore
The tragedy of the Baltimore bridge collapse has hit Latino and immigrant communities hard across the country, said Bruna Sollod, senior policy director for United We Dream, the nation's largest immigrant youth-led organization.
Sollod said in a statement Wednesday that immigrant workers like the six men still missing in Baltimore “have been building and repairing bridges that ensure we can move freely through the cities we call home and stay connected as neighbors and families.”
“Each and every one of these men was part of the fabric that helps make Baltimore a prosperous, vibrant and safer community,” Sollod said, adding that they are “a reminder of the often invisible care that immigrants provide.” to our cities and communities every day.”
In addition to working in construction, Luna was a member of CASA, one of the most prominent immigrant advocacy groups in the state of Maryland.
Luna “is a husband, father of three children, and has called Maryland home for more than 19 years,” said Gustavo Torres, executive director of CASA, in a statement. “Miguel Luna, from El Salvador, left on Monday at 6:30 pm to go to work and has not returned home since.”
The organization is working with affected families to provide them with support, Torres added.
Moisés Díaz, another Brawner Builders construction worker who was friends with Suazo and Luna, said he used to work the same shift his friends presumably died on, but changed shifts to make room in his schedule to attend church. .
“They were great husbands, fathers and sons,” Díaz told NBC News, Telemundo's sister network. "We are very worried".
Traffic to the Francis Scott Key Bridge was closed after authorities received a distress call from the freighter after it lost power, effectively averting a larger or more deadly disaster.
The accident occurred less than five minutes later.
Campos said he believes little could have been done to safely evacuate his co-workers.
“Everything happened in the blink of an eye and that was not possible,” Campos told Telemundo 44 in Spanish.