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The first two bodies have been pulled from the Patapsco River after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, as officials suspended recovery operations citing safety concerns for divers and an inability to reach more vehicles trapped within the submerged structure.
The men have been identified as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35 of Baltimore and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26 of Dundalk. Mr Fuentes was from Mexico and Mr Cabrera is from Guatemala.
A search and rescue mission for the six missing men, all construction workers, was called off on Tuesday night when Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said there was no hope of finding them alive due to the frigid water and the length of time since the accident. It switched to a recovery effort on Wendesday morning.
Officials say they do not have a timeline regarding when the bridge or port might be reopened, inciting fears over the economic and trade disruption caused by the tragedy.
Key Bridge had long been a critical link for trucking and motor vehicles across Washington DC, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York. The Port of Baltimore provides around 8,000 jobs for area residents, generating $2m a day in wages, according to US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg.
Two construction workers presumed dead now identified
Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, 37, was identified by his family as one of the construction workers who was on the bridge fixing potholes when it collapsed in the early hours of Tuesday morning.
Mr Suazo Sandoval’s brother, Martin Suazo, told CNN his brother had lived in the United States for 18 years and was originally from Azacualpa in Honduras. He was a married father of an 18-year-old son and a five-year-old daughter.
He added that his brother was also an entrepreneur who had started his own maintenance company.
Miguel Luna, a 49-year-old father of three from El Salvador who has called Maryland home for 19 years, is also among the six people missing.
Miguel Luna
“[We feel] devastated, devastated because our heart is broken, because we don’t know if they’ve rescued them yet. We’re just waiting to hear any news,’ his wife, Maria del Carmen Castellon told Telemundo 44.
The other victims have not been named, but Guatemala’s foreign ministry confirmed that two Guatemalan nationals are among those unaccounted for after the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore.
Those missing include a 26-year-old from San Luis, Peten, and a 35-year-old from Camotan, Chiquimula. The ministry did not name the men.
Multiple Mexican nationals are also missing, a Mexican Embassy official said, although it is not clear how many.
Watch: Structural engineer on how long it will take to rebuild Baltimore Key Bridge after collapse
Buttigieg: Livelihood of port workers a ‘main area of concern'
US Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said that a “main area of concern” was the livlihoods of port workers, telling a press conference that thousands of jobs could be affected by the incident.
At a White House press briefing on Wednesday, Mr Buttigieg adressed the impact of the crash on the local economy, saying that some 8,000 jobs were directly associated with port activities.
“Last I checked... about $2 million in wages are at stake every day and that’s one of the areas was concerned about,” he said.“It’s one thing for a container or vehicle or a shipment to be absorbed or accommodated somewhere else, but these longshore workers – if goods aren’t moving, they’re not working.
“Right now there is work taking place even inside of that bridge because of the work that has to be done to offload some of the vehicles that are that are stuck there and get that back on the surface transportation to go out to other sites, so they’re likely working right now, but that work won’t last long and that’s one of our main areas of concern.”
ICYMI: Two bodies found in search for missing workers after Baltimore Key Bridge collapse
Rescue operations were called off on Tuesday night when Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath said there was no hope of finding the men, who were working on the bridge at the time of the collision, alive due to the frigid water and the length of time since the accident.
Read more by Mike Bedigan:
Mexican president criticizes the US over its treatment of migrants after bridge collapse
“This demonstrates that migrants go out and do risky jobs at midnight, and for this reason they do not deserve to be treated as they are by certain insensitive, irresponsible politicians in the United States,” Mexico President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said during a news briefing on Wednesday, adding that “insensitive, irresponsible” politicians do not understand the contributions migrants make to the country.
Mexico’s foreign affairs ministry told The Telegraph that the two missing Mexican workers are from the states of Veracruz and Michoacán.
Coast Guard and Army Corps of Engineers will cleanup channel and reopen port
Two two agencies will work of making the port fully operational again, officials said during a White House press briefing that Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Vice Admiral Peter Gautier attended.
Live: View of Baltimore bridge wreckage as two bodies found during recovery mission
Divers on Wednesday recovered the remains of two of the six workers missing since they were tossed into Baltimore Harbor from a highway bridge that collapsed into shipping lanes when a faltering cargo freighter rammed into the structure, officials said last night.
The bodies were pulled from the mouth of the Patapsco River a day after the massive container ship lost power and its ability to manoeuvre before ploughing into a support pylon of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, knocking most of it into the water below.
What to know about the cargo ship Dali that took down a Baltimore bridge
The cargo ship Dali that crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge can reach almost to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris if stood upright, and about two-thirds of the way up the Empire State Building in New York.
It can carry the equivalent of almost 10,000 standard-sized metal shipping containers, and at the time of the accident was carrying nearly 4,700 containers. But while those figures are impressive, the Dali pales in comparison to the world’s largest container ships, which can carry more than 24,000 containers.
There are environmental and economic advantages to operating giant container ships, but their sheer size and weight make them difficult to manoeuvre and stop — especially when something goes wrong.
Dali’s length is measured to be around 984 feet (300 metres) and it weighed 95,000 tons when empty.
Here’s what you should know about the mid-sized ocean monster:
Baltimore Key bridge collapse: Experts explain what went wrong
The Dali set out from the Port of Baltimore around 1am on Tuesday, a local pilot manoeuvering the container ship towards open waters after two days in the harbour in preparation for its next sail to Sri Lanka.
The 948-foot vessel edged closer to Francis Scott Key Bridge and its four lanes of I-695 over the Patapsco River; early-morning traffic was relatively light as construction crews fixed potholes on the major thoroughfare that’s served the region since 1977.
The bridge was in fair condition, according to May 2023 inspection records from the National Bridge Inventory; the construction was essentially cosmetic and the workers, presumably, immersed in routine.
Then the lights of the Dali went off, on, and off again; it wasn’t long before the ship issued a mayday call and officers rushed to stop additional traffic from crossing Key bridge. The Dali, having lost propulsion and power, crashed into a bridge support buttress just before 1.30am; less than a minute later, the majority of the structure vanished beneath the surface of the Patapsco.
Sheila Flynn writes:
In photos: Remains of Baltimore's mangled Key Bridge still hang over cargo ship
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, a major highway artery for Baltimore and the wider region, has forced the indefinite closure of the city’s port, one of the busiest on the US Eastern Seaboard.
It is now almost exactly two days since the Dali container ship brought down the bridge, and the US Coast Guard says its priorities at this stage are to restore the waterway for shipping, stabilise the vessel and extricate it from the wreckage.
Speaking at a White House news briefing, Vice Admiral Peter Gautier said the remnants of the bridge needed to be cleared from the vessel before it can be moved.
The Dali, a Singaporean-flagged cargo vessel that spans the size of almost three football fields, remains stuck under debris from the Francis Scott Key Bridge
Workers continue to investigate and search for victims after the cargo ship Dali collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge
Mangled remains of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge lie on top of the container ship Dali in Baltimore
Close view of the Francis Scott Key Bridge over Patapsco river shows dismantled bridge and highway that fell into the waters after a cargo ship collision
A sign signals motorist of the closure of I-695 following the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge after the cargo ship Dali crashed into it
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2024-03-28 06:53:15Z
CBMieGh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmluZGVwZW5kZW50LmNvLnVrL25ld3Mvd29ybGQvYW1lcmljYXMvYmFsdGltb3JlLWZyYW5jaXMtc2NvdHQta2V5LWJyaWRnZS1jb2xsYXBzZS1saXZlLXVwZGF0ZXMtYjI1MTk2NjUuaHRtbNIBAA
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