Major Baltimore Bridge Collapses After Cargo Ship Strikes Support Column, Search And Rescue Underway

March 26, 2024 Disaster, News

The Baltimore Sun reports:

Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed early Tuesday morning after a support column was struck by a vessel, sending cars and at least one tractor-trailer into the Patapsco River and prompting Gov. Wes Moore to declare a state of emergency.

A spokesperson for the Baltimore City Fire Department said a major rescue operation was underway with all lanes closed and with all traffic being rerouted from the 1.6-mile steel bridge that is part of Interstate 695.

“The entire bridge collapsed into the Patapsco River,” said Kevin Cartwright, the director of communications for the Baltimore Fire Department. “We have reason to believe that there were vehicles and possibly a tractor-trailer” that went into the water, Cartwright said.

The New York Times reports:

It was not immediately clear how many people were on the span, the Francis Scott Key Bridge, when the cargo ship struck, or what happened to them. The bridge is part of Interstate 695, an outer crossing of Baltimore Harbor.

The ship is a 948-foot-long cargo vessel named Dali. The owners of the vessel, a Singapore-flagged ship, said it hit a pillar of the bridge around 1:30 a.m. All crew members, including two pilots onboard, have been accounted for and there were no injuries on the ship, the owners said.

The Dali left Baltimore at 1 a.m. and was bound for Colombo, Sri Lanka, according to MarineTraffic, a maritime data platform. The bridge — named after Francis Scott Key, the author of the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner” — opened in 1977.

The Associated Press reports:



At least seven vehicles, including at least one tractor-trailer-sized vehicle, fell into the water, Baltimore City Fire spokesman Kevin Cartwright told WTOP. “This is a dire emergency,” Cartwright, told The Associated Press. “Our focus right now is trying to rescue and recover these people.”

He added that some cargo appeared to be dangling from the bridge, which spans the Patapsco River, a vital artery that along with the Port of Baltimore is a hub for shipping on the East Coast.

The Maryland Transportation Authority posted on X around 2 a.m. that all lanes were closed in both directions for an “incident” on the bridge, and later posted that traffic was being detoured to Interstate 95 and Interstate 895, the department said.

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