“Divers located a red pick-up truck at a depth of approximately 7.6 meters,” announced Wednesday March 27 during a press briefing, the police in Maryland, the state where the port of Baltimore is located. “Two victims of the tragedy were prisoners of the vehicle. » The day after the collapse of a highway bridge hit by a container ship on the East Coast, authorities said the bodies of two workers had been recovered.
They were identified as those of two men aged 35 and 26, from Mexico and Guatemala, who were part of the team of workers present on the roadway of the Francis Scott Key Bridge at the time of the accident. The bodies of four of their colleagues, all presumed dead, have not yet been found, the authorities added.
Partly because of the amount of concrete and debris, “divers are no longer able to make their way safely” toward “what we believe to be the vehicle bombs,” said Roland Butler of the Maryland Police Department. . Rescuers will therefore seek to remove the structure from the water to facilitate access for divers, he said.
The authorities warned Tuesday evening that they did not think they could “find these individuals still alive”, even though two members of their team were rescued shortly after the tragedy. The victims, from Latin America according to the American press, were repairing potholes on the bridge when it collapsed into the Patapsco River.
“Not designed to resist”
The preliminary investigation shows that it was an accident, according to the authorities. For the American Minister of Transport, Pete Buttigieg, “this type of bridge (…) was simply not designed to withstand a direct impact against an essential support pillar”.
US President Joe Biden has pledged that “the federal government will pay the full cost of rebuilding” the bridge, which bears the name of the author of the lyrics to the US national anthem. , assuming that it would take time. “We will stand alongside the residents of Baltimore as long as it takes,” he assured Wednesday evening on the social network X.
The challenge of rebuilding the bridge is also economic: this four-lane bridge, 2.6 kilometers long, is located on a crucial north-south axis for the economy of the east coast of the United States. For the moment, maritime transport is “suspended until further notice”, according to the authorities. The Port of Baltimore is the ninth busiest in the country and generates more than 15,000 jobs.
