Baltimore Key Bridge collapse live updates: ‘No hope’ for six missing men as search suspended

The container vessel Dali was previously involved in another incident in the port of Antwerp, Belgium in 2016, hitting a quay as it tried to exit the North Sea container terminal.

An inspection in 2023 carried out in Chile found “propulsion and auxiliary machinery” deficiencies, according to data on the public Equasis website.

However, Singapore’s Maritime and Port Authority said the vessel passed two separate foreign port inspections in June and September 2023.

It said a faulty fuel pressure gauge was rectified before the vessel departed the port following its June 2023 inspection.

A container ship was only minutes into its planned 27-day journey when it rammed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, on Tuesday morning, sending the bridge and several people into the Patapsco River.

The Singaporean ship called the Dali was docked in Baltimore on Saturday in preparation for its trip to Colombo, Sri Lanka, according to Vessel Finder.

Carrying Maersk cargo, the nearly 1,000-foot-long (300 metre) container ship was expected to arrive in Sri Lanka on 22 April.

But around 1.30am ET on Tuesday, the ship hit the bridge causing it to collapse as construction workers were working on the bridge.

Search divers will return to the waters surrounding the twisted ruins of the Baltimore bridge on Wednesday to look for the remains of the six workers presumed dead.

Maryland state police and the US Coast Guard officials said diminished visibility and increasingly treacherous currents in the wreckage-strewn channel made continued search efforts on the river too risky to continue overnight.

Starting at 6am on Wednesday, “we’re hoping to put divers in the water and begin a more detailed search to do our very best to recover those six missing people,” state police colonel Roland Butler said.

“We do not believe that we’re going to find any of these individuals alive,” Coast Guard rear admiral Shannon Gilreath added.

Rescuers pulled two other workers from the water alive on Tuesday, and one of them was hospitalised.

President Joe Biden said he planned to travel to Baltimore and intends for the federal government to pick up the entire cost of rebuilding the collapsed Key Bridge.

“I expect the Congress to support my effort,” he said.

“This is going to take some time but the people of Baltimore can count on us to stick with them every step of the way, until the port is reopened and the bridge is rebuilt.

“We’re not leaving until it’s done.”Mr Biden added: “I’m directing my team to move heaven and Earth to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as soon as humanly possible.”

The “Dali” cargo vessel involved in the Baltimore bridge collapse had valid certificates on its structural integrity and equipment functionality at the time of the incident, Singapore’s Marine and Ports Authority said.

The ship had also passed two separate foreign port state inspections in June and September last year, it added.

The six people who are unaccounted for after the Key Bridge collapse were part of a construction crew filling potholes on the bridge, said Paul Wiedefeld, the state’s transportation secretary.

Guatemala’s consulate in Maryland said two of the missing were citizens of the Central American nation.

Honduras’ deputy foreign affairs minister Antonio Garcia said that a Honduran citizen, Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, was missing, the Associated Press reported.

Mexico’s Washington consulate said via social media X that citizens of that nation were also among the missing. It did not say how many.

A senior executive at the company that employed the workers said that the workers were presumed dead given the water’s depth and how much time had passed.

Jeffrey Pritzker, executive vice president of Brawner Builders, said the crew was working in the middle of the bridge when it came down.

“This was so completely unforeseen,” he said.“We don’t know what else to say. We take such great pride in safety, and we have cones and signs and lights and barriers and flaggers.”

Crew members onboard the cargo vessel “Dali” issued a mayday call moments before the crash took down the Francis Scott Key bridge, enabling authorities to limit vehicle traffic on the span, Maryland’s governor Wes Moore said.

As the vessel neared the bridge, puffs of black smoke could be seen as the lights flickered on and off. It struck one of the bridge’s supports, causing the structure to collapse like a toy, and a section of the span came to rest on the bow.

With the ship barreling toward the bridge at “a very, very rapid speed”, authorities had just enough time to stop cars from coming over the bridge, Mr Moore said.

“These people are heroes,” he said. “They saved lives last night.”