Bridges Collapse In America Too!

Early on March 26, 2024, the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland, in the United States collapsed after it was struck by a container ship, the Dali.

Following the incident, Maryland Governor Wes Moore declared a state of emergency on Monday, CNN reported.

Maritime tracking Web site MarineTraffic showed that the Singapore-flagged ship stopped in Baltimore, where it was departing with a destination of Colombo, Sri Lanka.

The Web site showed the ship stopped around 1:30 AM ET (Eastern Time) and was surrounded by first response boats.

Six members of a construction crew repairing pot holes on the bridge are missing. Two other crew members have been rescued -- one was seriously injured and is in hospital, the other was uninjured.

The Dali -- whose 22 member crew, PTI's Yoshita Singh tweeted on Monday evening are all Indians -- is around 300 metres (984 feet) long with a width of around 48 metres (157 feet), according to MarineTraffic data.

The ship was chartered by Maersk and carrying their customers' cargo, the Danish shipping company told CNN.

One tweet said the ship had lost power before the collision with the bridge, which is named after Francis Scott Key, the man who wrote the American national anthem, The Star Spangled Banner.

Key wrote The Star Spangled Banner on the HMS Minden, which was built in a Bombay dockyard in 1810 by Jamsetjee Bomanjee Wadia, the 19th century shipbuilder and ancestor of Bombay Dyeing tycoon Nusli Wadia (who turned 80 on February 15, 2024).

With inputs from Agencies.

Photographs curated by Manisha Kotian/Rediff.com
Feature Presentation: Aslam Hunani/Rediff.com