'Mass casualties' feared as Baltimore's Francis Scott Key Bridge ...
Authorities say emergency personnel are at the scene and rescue efforts are under way.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge in the United States city of Baltimore has collapsed after being hit by a ship.
Media reports said the vessel crashed into the bridge at about 1:30am (05:30 GMT) on Tuesday, catching fire before sinking. The bridge buckled, causing multiple vehicles to fall into the water below. Officials have called the incident a “developing mass casualty event”.
Baltimore Mayor Brandon M Scott said on X that emergency personnel were quickly at the scene and rescue efforts were under way.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore has announced a state of emergency and said on X that he has requested federal help.
Statement from @GovWesMoore on the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge:
My office is in close communication with U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott, Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, and the Baltimore Fire Department as…
— Carter Elliott, IV (@CarterElliottIV) March 26, 2024
“I have declared a State of Emergency here in Maryland and we are working with an interagency team to quickly deploy federal resources from the Biden Administration,” his office wrote.
Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore City Fire Department, said emergency agencies began receiving 911 calls at about 1:30am with reports that a vessel travelling outbound from Baltimore had struck a column on the bridge, causing it to collapse.
“All lanes closed both directions for incident on I-695 Key Bridge. Traffic is being detoured,” the Maryland Transportation Authority posted on X.
It is unclear how many vehicles were on the four-lane road bridge at the time of the incident, but fire officials said “there was surely a large tractor-trailer”.
Up to 20 people are feared to be in the water, Cartwright said, adding that officials were dealing with a “mass casualty, multi-agency incident”.
“This is a dire emergency,” Cartwright said. “Our focus right now is trying to rescue and recover these people.”
Emergency responders are having to operate cautiously as it appears that there are “some cargo or retainers hanging from the bridge”, creating unsafe and unstable conditions, he continued.
A live video streamed on YouTube showed a ship hitting the bridge, after which big portions of the spans collapsed into the Patapsco River.
Synergy Marine Corp said a container ship that it manages, the Singapore-flagged “Dali”, hit one of the pillars of the bridge. All crew members, including the two pilots, have been accounted for and there were no reports of any injuries, it added.
It was not immediately clear if the Baltimore port operations were affected.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge is a major link across the city harbour in the northeast of the United States. According to the Maryland Department of Transportation, it is more than 2.5km (1.6 miles) long and has four lanes.
The port’s private and public terminals handled 847,158 cars and light trucks in 2023, the most of any US port. The port also handles farm and construction machinery, sugar, gypsum and coal, according to the Maryland State Government website.
Source
:
Al Jazeera and news agencies
