Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, which has stood strong for nearly 50 years, collapsed into pieces in mere seconds early Tuesday after a cargo ship collided into one of its support pillars.
Dramatic video shows the moment the 948-foot, Singapore-flagged container ship, named the Dali, hit the bridge, which carries Interstate 695 over the Patapsco River. The Coast Guard received a report at 1:27 a.m. that the vessel had made impact with the structure, triggering a response team.
The disaster unfolded in seconds.
At 1:24 a.m. the ship’s lights appeared to turn off, and flicked back on a second later, and dark black smoke appeared to billow from its chimney. At 1:26 a.m. the ship appeared to turn and its lights shut off and on again.
At 1:28 a.m. the ship made impact, and seconds later the portion of the bridge above it crumbled and plummeted towards the Patapsco River.
It took about seven seconds for the ripple effects to carry across the 1.6-mile length of the bridge. Some parts of the massive structure were sent underwater.
An expansive search and rescue effort is underway for at least seven people in the river, and two have been rescued so far.
Photos of the wreckage come daylight shows wrangled pieces of the bridge on the head of the cargo ship. Not all parts of the bridge are underwater, some pieces the continuous through truss bridge remain above water, some parts laying sideways.
All 22 crew members on board the ship, including two pilots, have been accounted for and no injures were reported, Synergy Marine Group, the managing company of the ship told NBC News. The Dali container ship was bound for Sri Lanka.
The company said the exact cause of the incident is yet to be determined.
The loss of the bridge is emotional for locals.
Chantel DeBord, who lives in Baltimore, told NBC News correspondent George Solis on Tuesday morning: “That was one of the proud things — that we built that and it’s still standing and just being able to say that our port is one of the reasons why the East Coast over here gets a lot of their product.”
“The amount of money that we’re going to lose in our crabbing, our fishing industry, our taxes are going to go up, the commute is going to get really bad … the amount of devastation,” she added.
“It makes me sad to know people lost their lives and now people are going to lose their livelihoods,” DeBord said.
No fatalities have been confirmed thus far. As of Tuesday morning, there’s heavy Coast Guard presence around the wreckage site as search and rescue efforts continue.
