Baltimore: Removal of debris from collapsed bridge continues after boat accident

Cleaning and removing debris from the collapsed bridge Baltimore They continue this Sunday, an operation that will be extensive and complicated, and to the point that a provisional date for the reopening of maritime traffic cannot yet be scheduled, authorities warned.

“This will be a very complex process“, warned this Sunday the US Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigieg, in an interview he gave to the CBS network.

“There are, even now, forces acting on that steel, so a lot is needed to make sure it can be dismantled safely, to make sure the ship stays where it’s supposed to be and doesn’t swing over the side of the canal,” Buttigieg said. elaborate.

Operations to remove a first section of the damaged bridge, which collapsed on Tuesday when a cargo ship collided with one of its pillars, began Saturday by specialized teams supported by the largest crane on the east coast of the USA

The Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after the Dali container ship collided with one of its pillars, in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. (AFP). (-/)

Buttigieg added that this crane, capable of lifting up to a thousand tons of weight, will be joined in the coming days by another that can move up to 600 tons and is heading towards the area of ​​the accident, which left six people dead and lost, multimillionaires .

“We have a ship that is almost the size of the Eiffel Tower and that is now stuck inside the canal that has the Key Bridge on top,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore told CNN today.

The cargo ship, called Dalí, and its crew of just over twenty sailors (mostly from India) have been stranded since Tuesday amid around 4,000 tons of debris and pieces of metal, some of which fell onto the roof and damaged some containers.

Most of the ship’s cargo, which at maximum capacity can carry more than 110,000 tons, was not damaged, according to authorities.

The debris removal work will be carried out almost piece by piece, in an operation in which the respective investigations are carried out at the same time to determine the causes of the accident.

“We need to have answers about what happened. “We need to know who should be to blame for this and make sure we hold them accountable,” Moore emphasized today.

The U.S. Coast Guard Mako Cutter patrols near the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge after it was struck by the Dali container ship in Baltimore, Maryland, March 27, 2024. (Photo by Jim WATSON/AFP) (JIM WATSON /)

This same Sunday, the governor announced the launch of a telephone line to provide unemployment assistance to workers affected by the collapse of the bridge that connects to the port of Baltimore, a maritime terminal responsible for around 8,000 direct jobs and around 10,000 indirect jobs, he said.

“People need to remember that this is not a Baltimore catastrophe, nor a Maryland catastrophe. “This is also a national economic catastrophe,” Moore said.

The governor reiterated that as soon as conditions allow, divers will resume the search for the other four workers who are presumed to have died in the accident, whose bodies, however, have not yet been recovered.

Six people died in the accident, all Latin American workers who at the time of the incident were carrying out asphalt patching work. From them, rescue teams managed to recover two bodies.

Authorities indicated that at this time the accident site is not safe for divers to continue recovery tasks.

With the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, access to the port of Baltimore was blocked, one of the main ports on the Atlantic coast of the United States, through which around 80 billion dollars in goods from abroad would transit in 2023.

Due to the devastating effects on the local economy caused by the accident, the government’s Small Business Administration (SBA) will launch a low-interest loan program for small businesses in Maryland, Washington D.C., and Delaware, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Virginia counties. Western.

Source: Elcomercio