Accident on the Baltimore bridge: the search for six workers suspended and presumed dead

The US Coast Guard suspended its intense search for survivors following the crash on Tuesday Collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimorecaused by the collision of a merchant ship, e six workers were presumed dead missing after the accident.

“Based on the length of time we’ve been searching, the extensive search efforts we’ve done, and the temperature of the water, We do not believe we will find any of the individuals alive“Coast Guard Commander Shannon Gilreath explained this in a press conference.

The authorities They are now focusing on finding the bodies. Some boats will patrol the area during the night, while divers will resume diving on Wednesday morning, when visibility and temperature conditions improve.

Of the eight employees of the construction company Brawner Builders who were filling holes on the bridge and fell into the dark waters of the Patapsco River, only two had been saved. One of them was in serious condition.

This was confirmed by the Singaporean company Synergy Group, which manages the ship None of the ship’s 22 crew members were injured..

The accident occurred in the early hours of this Tuesday, when the Dali ship, with Singapore flagsuffered a power outage after leaving Baltimore Harbor and crashed into a pillar of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed within seconds.

Among the victims were two Guatemalans and a Honduran

The Guatemalan Foreign Ministry announced that two of the fatal victims were citizens of that country. They are a 26-year-old man from San Luis (Petén) and another 35-year-old man from Camotan (Chiquimula).

Another of the people who lost their lives was Honduran Maynor Sauzo. This was confirmed by that country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The vice chancellor of Honduras, Antonio García, told Noticiero TN5, in Tegucigalpa, that the government of Xiomara Castro has communicated with Suazo’s family in Honduras and that there is an official provision to repatriate his remains, if his relatives do so they will decide.

Suazo, 39, was originally from Azacualpa, Santa Bárbara department in western Honduras, and had lived in the United States for 18 years, García said.

Garcia also said the company Suazo worked for contacted his family after the incident.

The Mexican consulate, for its part, is also trying to verify whether there are citizens of that country among the victims.

The ship that crashed in Baltimore passed two inspections in 2023

Singapore’s port authority said Wednesday that a cargo ship flying that country’s flag collapsed a bridge in Baltimore. it had passed two inspections in 2023.

The ship’s certificates “covering the structural integrity of the ship and the functionality of the ship’s equipment were valid at the time of the accident,” the port authority of this Southeast Asian city-state said.

He also noted that a faulty fuel pressure gauge had been repaired in June.

A day earlier, the Port Authority of Singapore said its investigators and those from the Transportation Security Investigation Bureau would head to Baltimore to work with the U.S. Coast Guard.

Economic impact and reconstruction

There is also an ongoing investigation into what happened, even though the FBI announced from the beginning that this was not the case There are indications that it was a terrorist attack.

Furthermore, the collapse of the bridge has indefinitely blocked access to the port of Baltimore, one of the most important in the United States in the Atlantic, which will hinder the traffic of goods and passengers on the east coast of the country and anticipates serious economic consequences.

Immortalized in the television series ‘The Wire’, the bridge was inaugurated on March 23, 1977 and has been an economic pillar for the area since its construction

For this reason, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, did not take long to react and announced the reconstruction of the bridge as soon as possible.

“I have ordered my team to move heaven and earth to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as humanly possible,” the president said in a message to the press at the White House.