The bodies of two people have been recovered from the Patapsco River during the search for possible victims of the bridge collapse on Tuesday in Baltimore (Maryland), as reported this Wednesday during a press conference with the governor, the Democrat, Wes Moore, who He told the families, in Spanish: "We are with you."
At 10 a.m., divers found a red truck submerged in the water with two people trapped inside, who have been identified as Alejandro Fernandez Fuentes, 35, of Baltimore, and Dorlian Castillo Cabrera, 26.
The Coast Guard had resumed at six in the morning the search for the six Brawner Builders company workers who fell into the Patapsco River when the boat collapsed on the Francis Scott Key Bridge early Tuesday, whom they had already presumed dead. the night before, thus canceling the rescue operation.
A team of eight construction workers was repairing that elevated stretch of Interstate 695 at the time of the freighter crash and could not be alerted in time. One of them managed to survive without injuries while another was hospitalized. Six others disappeared in the collapse.
Baltimore police boats at the site of the bridge collapse, March 27, 2024. Steve Helber / AP
The identities of the six missing workers have not yet been released, but the embassies of Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras have reported that some are from those countries.
The Honduran Maynor Suazo and the Salvadoran Miguel Luna were identified by their families in an interview with Noticias Telemundo as two of the workers who were on duty on the bridge when the accident occurred.
Miguel Luna and Maynor Suazo.Family photos
National Transportation Safety Board Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told NBC News that the freighter's
black box
, a device that could reveal data to investigators, including the positioning and speed of the ship, what could have happened to its power, as well as the conversations of the last 12 hours.
An NTSB investigative team is scheduled to board the freighter Wednesday and speak with crew members. The official explained that her team will examine a number of issues, including what protections the bridge's support structures had and whether they should have been more robust, and the possibility that contaminated fuel could have played a role in the tragedy, the The Wall Street Journal.
Homendy noted that they will analyze how the bridge was destroyed due to the loss of a single support pillar and how similar catastrophes could be avoided in other places in the country. “We are going to study this type of infrastructure to prevent this type of collapse from occurring,” she declared. However, Ella Homendy was cautious in making it clear that the investigation could last two years.
Tragedy in the middle of the night
Early Tuesday morning police radio received an alert: a huge freighter had lost its steering ability and was heading toward the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore Bay. Within about 90 seconds, officers responded that they had managed to stop vehicle traffic on the bridge in both directions. One of them said that she was about to enter the bridge to alert a construction team,
but it was too late
: without direction and loaded with huge containers, the ship crashed into a support pillar.
“The whole bridge collapsed,” said a frantic officer, “start up, start up whoever, everyone….the whole bridge fell down.”
When the freighter collided with the pillar around 1:30 a.m., it caused a long span of the bridge, a key link in the region's transportation networks, to sink into the Patapsco River. In an interview this Wednesday with MSNBC, the governor of Maryland, Democrat Wes Moore, praised the quick response after the call for help, which probably contributed to preventing more victims.