A portion of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore has collapsed after a large boat collided with it early on Tuesday morning, sending multiple vehicles into the water.

At about 1.30am, a vessel crashed into the bridge, catching fire before sinking and causing multiple vehicles to fall into the water below, according to a video posted on X.

“All lanes closed both directions for incident on I-695 Key Bridge. Traffic is being detoured,” the Maryland Transportation Authority posted on X.

Matthew West, a petty officer first class for the coastguard in Baltimore, told the New York Times that the coastguard received a report of an impact at 1.27am ET. West said the Dali, a 948ft (29 metres) Singapore-flagged cargo ship, had hit the bridge, which is part of Interstate 695.

    • derf82@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Not just Baltimore. This is also a major cargo port. That harbor will be blocked for a long time. Get ready for supply chain disruptions and more rising prices.

        • francisfordpoopola@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          That’s a crime scene and a death scene. It’s not going to go quickly. The good news is that it’s a critical roadway and waterway intersection so the feds and state government have motivation to make haste.

          • fishos@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            Except there is no mystery as to the deaths part. Investigations take a lot of time when there are a lot of questions. The only question here is “why did the boat plow straight into the bridge?”. There’s very little question how/why the bridge collapsed(it got hit directly by a massive cargo ship). No one’s going to question the physics of it. The only question will be “was it captain error or ship error so we know who to fine”. Recovering the ship will be part of answering that and the rest will be communication and maintenance logs.

            • tal@lemmy.today
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              9 months ago

              There’s very little question how/why the bridge collapsed(it got hit directly by a massive cargo ship).

              I recently – in the context of IS being in the somewhat bizzare situation of having to argue with the Russian government that they did in fact commit their terrorist act in Moscow – linked to an old The Onion satirical video. It dated to a bit after 9/11 and had the Al Qaeda representative being interviewed – irate at the 9/11 Truther also on the show, who was claiming that the World Trade Center was downed with thermite bombs – using almost the same phrase:

              https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q_OIXfkXEj0

              “We flew an enormous airplane into a building, okay? I think it is obvious what caused the building to crumble.”

          • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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            9 months ago

            The accident didn’t happen in the middle of the navigable channel, so you can maintain the pier and ship while clearing the main span.

            As for being a death scene, you likely aren’t going to be able to access the site with divers as it is too dangerous.

            • bitchkat@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              I saw another article today where they said exactly that. The remaining vehicles are under concrete and its now converted to a salvage mission.

        • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Good luck finding the necessary crane capacity. There are a handful of seriously big cranes in the 7000 tons plus range, but they are Dutch or Japanese, primarily. Wherever they are, they are probably busy and will take ages to get there. While the weight/mass of the bridge is not available online, it surely exceeds the weight limits of cranes currently in existence by far, so the bridge segments need to be cut up prior to removal.

          Even if the US spends insane amounts of money, this issue will take quite some time to resolve.

          • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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            9 months ago

            You’re not lifting it out of the way, you’re gonna pull it out of the way with a tugboat.

            • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              It still is thousands of tons of steel, which will not be pulled that easily. And it is steel that does not swim, but drag along the muddy ground.

              • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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                9 months ago

                You cut it into pieces, add some buoyancy things. Naval operations can be impressive. Hell the Navy probably already has stuff to do this exact thing in case of war and a bridge out of Port gets destroyed. You don’t want your Navy blocked in. You also don’t need to move it far to get shipping back.

                • drphungky@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  Feels like an army corps of engineer training exercise, especially after Biden committed to help rebuild. Be really interesting engineering coming out of both the cleanup, rebuild, and post accident analysis.

                  • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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                    9 months ago

                    Cleanup will probably be Navy, rebuild will be civilian. Analysis is simple, ship lost power and hit the pier. Ships that size not sure you can do much.

                • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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                  9 months ago

                  The “cut into pieces” will be interesting. There are a shitload of large pieces, and everything is under tension. The links between the pieces are rather large, and a good amount of them are under water. That’s going to be serious work.

                • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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                  9 months ago

                  some buoyancy things

                  I get the distinct impression that you have zero engineering knowledge or experience.

            • Treczoks@lemmy.world
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              9 months ago

              At a 1,600 tons limit, one would have to cut the debris into a lot of small pieces. There is no info on the net on how much mass the Key bridge had, but assuming the build and the size, half a million tons is probably not to far off.

              • Tug@lemmy.world
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                9 months ago

                It won’t come out in one piece, but it can come out in much larger pieces with a big crane. This one specifically was used to build bridges and put in far larger sections than this job would require. Smaller crane barges will work on the smaller pieces simultaneously. They’ll clear half the channel (most likely the section away from the Dali) and open it to one-way traffic while they continue clean up.

      • ____@infosec.pub
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        9 months ago

        I think we all know someone who was forced to buy TP on ebay in the early pandemic.

        This could send us right back there. Doesn’t much matter why stuff can’t move from A to B, prices will increase and people will take the opportunity to profiteer.

      • BarqsHasBite@lemmy.ca
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        9 months ago

        You can clear the debris in a week or two. It will take multiple years to build a new bridge.

        • muthian@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Vehicles from Europe coming via ROROs come to Baltimore primarily. This will impact them as diverting to Jacksonville or Savannah is going through take a lot of landside logistics to figure out.

          • grue@lemmy.world
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            9 months ago

            If I’m not mistaken, it’s Brunswick, not Savannah, that is Georgia’s major port for automobiles/ROROs. Savannah is bigger overall, but that’s due to other types of cargo.

            This article mentions Brunswick having a goal of surpassing Baltimore, which is #1. I guess this disaster makes that more likely…

        • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
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          9 months ago

          Port of Baltimore is top ten in the US for international trade. It falls to top 20 when domestic shipping is included, but it’s absolutely a major port.