Questions Swirl Over Baltimore Bridge Collapse

As a spring tide rushed out of Baltimore harbor just after midnight Tuesday, the hulking outlines of a cargo ship nearly three football fields long and stacked high with thousands of containers sliced through frigid waters toward the Francis Scott Key Bridge.

The vessel, the Dali, was a half-hour into its 27-day journey from Baltimore to Colombo, Sri Lanka.

Then the lights on the Dali went dark. The crew urgently reported to local authorities that the vessel had lost power and propulsion. The ship bore down on the bridge.

In a scene captured from a livestreaming camera, the ship smashed into a pillar of the bridge with so much force that the southern and central spans of the bridge collapsed within seconds.

A highway repair crew was on the structure filling potholes. At least eight members of the construction crew plunged into the Patapsco River below.

Six people were presumed dead as officials suspended the search-and-rescue effort Tuesday night.

“Based on the length of time we’ve gone in this search, the extensive search efforts that we’ve put into it, the water temperature, that at this point we do not believe we are going to find any of these individuals still alive,” Coast Guard Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath said.

Two construction workers were rescued from the water; one went to the hospital and was later released.

President Joe Biden announced that the Port of Baltimore would be closed indefinitely. The port ranks first in the United States for the volume of automobiles and light trucks, and experts said its closure could affect deliveries, including of farm and construction machinery.

The Key Bridge, which experts said would take years to replace, was a major north-south artery, and its collapse wiped out a roadway that tens of thousands of people used to travel to and from Baltimore every day. The bridge carried more than 12.4 million commercial and passenger vehicles in 2023, according to a Maryland state government report issued in November.

Biden called the bridge “one of the most important elements” supporting the U.S. economy in the Northeast and said he expected the federal government to pay for the “entire cost” of bridge repairs.

Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that the agency would lead the investigation into the cause of the bridge collapse.

Divers were expected to return to the water Wednesday morning to try to recover the bodies.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .