Baltimore bridge collapses after catastrophic ship crash
By Yelyzaveta Basharova
A screencap of footage of the wreckage from ABC 7 News
The main bridge in Baltimore in the US state of Maryland collapsed after a container ship collided with it early on Tuesday morning, trapping several vehicles in the cold water.
The state's governor declared a state of emergency to rapidly deploy federal resources. Joe Biden said that search and rescue efforts were a "top priority" and that everything pointed to this being a "terrible accident".
A 1.5-mile (2.4 km) section of the bridge collapsed immediately, trapping eight construction workers in the water. Two were rescued on the same day, the bodies of two more were found on Wednesday, and the search for the other four, who are presumed dead, continues.
Miguel Luna, Dorlian Castillo Cabrera, and Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval are three of the six dead who have been identified. All three were working on the bridge when it collapsed.
The scene's video footage reveals that Dali's power was cut off just before the crash. The crew may have lost control of the ship's controls as a result of the power failure, which would have made the ship unable to steer.
The wreckage blocked shipping lanes in the Patapsco River and forced the indefinite closure of the port of Baltimore, one of the busiest ports on the US East Coast.
At a press conference immediately after the disaster on Tuesday, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said that the Key Bridge "simply was not designed to withstand a direct impact of a vessel weighing about 200 million pounds (90,700 tonnes) on a critical abutment pier."
Construction of the Key Bridge was completed in 1977. "The lifespan of the project is so long - sometimes more than 100 years - that the design requirements can change in ways that are difficult to predict during design and construction," said Professor Arvade.
It also turned out that the bridge did not have "wings" - an additional layer of protection around the bridge abutment that could have absorbed some of the impact.
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore is likely to result in the largest marine insurance loss in history, according to the chairman of Lloyd's of London.
Bruce Carnegie-Brown said he expects insurers to suffer multi-billion dollar losses in the wake of the disaster. He said: "This tragedy could have been the biggest in the history of marine insurance."
Lloyd's, which operates the world's largest insurance market, has companies operating in the property and marine insurance markets among its 77 member companies.
On Wednesday, Barclays analysts estimated that insurers could face $1.2 billion in claims for the bridge alone, and there could be liabilities of $350 million to $700 million for wrongful death.