“We move heaven and earth” so that the port of Baltimore, in the eastern United States, is operational again, declared Thursday March 28, Tom Perez, advisor to the White House. “A large capacity crane ship will be on site during the day to help collect the debris” of the Francis Scott Key Bridge which collapsed after being hit by a ship, he explained during 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 daunting, with the search for the bodies of the four other men having been interrupted late Wednesday because authorities deemed it too dangerous to send divers to the accident site. 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 Dalía container ship 300 meters long and 48 meters wide, 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 busiest port, 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 the reconstruction, it “isn’t going to take hours, or days, or weeks”also warned Wes Moore, governor of the state of Maryland, where Baltimore is located, referring to “a very long way to go” 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 US Department of Transportation announced Thursday the “quick release” of this amount in “emergency aid fund” in Maryland. This sum should make it possible to“help Maryland begin urgent work” and will be followed by other funds “as reconstruction progresses”explained Transport Minister Pete Buttigieg.
“No one will ever forget the shocking images of a container ship hitting the Francis Scott Key Bridge, causing it to collapse and the tragic deaths of six people”he added, in a White House press release.
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 out in maritime transport. “This should represent a substantial loss, probably the largest” regarding maritime transport “but not outside our parameters”said Bruce Carnegie-Brown on CNBC.