“We are moving heaven and earth” to ensure that the port of Baltimore, in the eastern United States, is operational again, said White House advisor Tom Perez on Thursday March 28. “A high-capacity crane vessel will be on site today to help collect debris” from the Francis Scott Key Bridge that collapsed after being struck by a ship, he said in an interview with the American channel MSNBC.
The bodies of two of the six missing workers who were working on the structure at the time of the accident were found on Wednesday. Officials warned that the difficulties were significant, the search for the bodies of the four other men having been interrupted late Wednesday because the authorities considered it too dangerous to send divers to the site of the accident. The bridge, used every day by tens of thousands of vehicles, collapsed like a house of cards on Tuesday, after one of its piers was hit by the Dali, a container ship 300 meters long and 48 meters long. in width, due to propulsion problems.
The four men, all Latin American immigrants, are presumed to have been killed in the accident which caused the shutdown of maritime transport in the country’s ninth largest port in terms of activity, which generates more than 15,000 jobs. They were part of a team of eight workers working at night to repair the road. Two of them were rescued shortly after the bridge collapsed.
Initial federal aid of $60 million
Area residents participated in a vigil at a nearby park Thursday morning, local media reported, while Baltimore City Hall launched a fundraiser to support the victims’ families.
As for reconstruction, it “is not going to take hours, nor days, nor weeks”, also warned Wes Moore, governor of the state of Maryland, where Baltimore is located, referring to “a very long road ahead.” browse” before returning to normal.
Maryland asked the federal state for an initial envelope of 60 million dollars (approximately 55 million euros), an appeal quickly heard by the government. The U.S. Department of Transportation announced Thursday the “rapid release” of this amount in “emergency relief funds” to Maryland. This sum should “help Maryland begin urgent work” and will be followed by other funds “as reconstruction progresses,” explained Transportation Minister Pete Buttigieg.
“No one will ever forget the shocking images of a container ship striking the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse and the tragic deaths of six people,” he added, in a White House statement.
After the tragedy, President Joe Biden pledged that the federal administration would cover the entire cost of rebuilding the bridge.
On Thursday, the head of the Lloyd’s of London insurance market warned that compensation from insurance companies for the accident could be the highest ever paid in maritime transport. “This should represent a substantial loss, probably the largest” in maritime transport “but not outside of our parameters,” said Bruce Carnegie-Brown on CNBC.
