Baltimore police released this Wednesday the audios of the agents who saw how the Dali merchant ship approached the Francis Scott Key bridge a few seconds before crashing, an event that has ended the lives of at least six Latin Americans who were working on repair work.
“I need one of you on the south side, one of you on the north side. Stop all traffic on the bridge (…) A ship that has just lost its way is approaching“says a police officer at the beginning of the audio, marked 90 seconds before announcing the total fall of the bridge.
Two officers respond that they are doing so while another asks, “Is there a team working on the bridge right now?”
In the edited audio, which lasts a minute and a half, another person responds that There is a team working and the agent in charge asks him to find the person in charge to “temporarily remove them from the bridge.”. The agents assure that they have closed the bridge to traffic, just 60 seconds after the first communication.
About 30 seconds later, one of the police officers is heard stating: “The entire bridge just fell!”
“Do we know if all traffic is stopped?” asks the higher command, and the policeman responds with a nervous voice: “I can’t get to the other side, sir, the bridge is down.”
The events occurred early Tuesday morning, when the Singapore-flagged ship Dali suffered a power outage after leaving the port of Baltimore and crashed into a pillar of the Francis Scott Key Bridge, which collapsed in a matter of seconds.
Eight employees of the construction company Brawner Builders, who were filling potholes on the bridge, fell to the dark waters of the Patapsco River, of which only two could be rescued.
After an intense search against the clock that lasted almost all day, the authorities declared the six missing people dead and announced that they would reactivate the search for the bodies on Wednesday.
Before the collision, the crew of the container ship issued an emergency warningwhich allowed the authorities to cut off vehicle circulation on the bridge and avoid a greater tragedy.
Two Mexicans, one Salvadoran, one Honduran and two Guatemalans are the nationalities of the deceased.
The authorities have confirmed their nationalities, although only the names of two of them are known: the Salvadoran Miguel Luna and the Honduran Maynor Suazo.
With information from EFE.
Keep reading:
– A bridge falls in Baltimore after the impact of a ship while vehicles were crossing at that time
– Baltimore authorities search for 6 people after Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse
– The impressive images left by the collapse of the bridge in Baltimore