[Francis Scott Key Bridge. Photo Credit to Pixabay]

The Francis Scott Key Bridge, a bridge that crosses the Port of Baltimore in Maryland, collapsed on the 26th.

The bridge collapsed at around 1:28 am, after being hit by a cargo ship.

This accident led 8 people and several vehicles to fall into the Patapsco River.

When the bridge collapsed, there were at least 8 construction workers on the bridge who were conducting repair work.

Two of them were rescued, two bodies were retrieved on Wednesday, and the other four are still missing.

Paul Wiedefeld, the state’s transportation secretary, explained that the construction workers were repairing potholes at that time.

Also, Wes Moore, the governor of Maryland, stated “The preliminary investigation points to an accident. We haven’t seen any credible evidence of a terrorist attack.”

US officials explained that they did not see any indication of a terrorist attack involved in this accident.

Before the collision, the vessel issued a Mayday call, which is a distress signal.

The ship’s signal enabled officials to prevent more traffic from going to the bridge.

However, the cargo ship eventually hit one of the supports of the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

This caused the entire bridge’s roadway to break apart and plunge into the water.

The vessel named “Dali” is a Singaporean vessel, owned by Grace Ocean Private.

Synergy Marine Groupe, which was in charge of the ship’s management, informed that there were 23 crewmen (21 crews and 2 pilots) and there was no casualty.

On the day of the incident, Dali was heading from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Right after the collision, there was an expectation that there would be at least 20 missing people.

However, the accident happened in the early morning, with not much traffic.

Additionally, the ship’s crew warned about the shipwreck, which allowed vehicle entry restrictions to the bridge.

These actions seemed to have prevented a bigger tragedy.

It was reported that the bridge collision happened right before the police evacuated the construction workers.

Currently, fire authorities are mobilizing helicopters, boats, and divers in the search for missing people. However, they are thought to be dead.

Most of the missing were discovered to be immigrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and Mexico.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge was a 2.6-kilometer-long steel arch bridge opened in 1997.

The bridge was named after the author of the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

The bridge, which is 2.6 kilometers long and 56 meters high, had four lanes and was used by many commuting and cargo vehicles.

According to the state of Maryland, 12.4 million vehicles used the bridge in 2023 alone.

Besides the Baltimore area, the traffic volume coming from and going to Washington D.C. and New York was high, too.

Furthermore, as this bridge was a crucial connecting link to Baltimore, the longer the terminated bridge’s operation takes, the more detrimental the cost to the area and the country becomes.

Meanwhile, Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge was the ninth-busiest major U.S. port that processed international cargo.

In fact, Baltimore is the deepest harbor in Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay. So it is expected that the country’s automobile supply will suffer greatly from now on.

Automobile companies, such as Nissan, Toyota, General Motors, Volvo, Jaguar Land Rover, and Volkswagen, were utilizing the Port of Baltimore.

However, South Korea’s Hyundai Motors and Kia Motors did not use the Port of Baltimore.