More Victims? 7 Vehicles Missing After Falling During the Dali Crash

Seven vehicles were missing after falling from the 1.6-mile-long span. Officials are using sonar technology to find vehicles, presumably occupied.

The death toll could be higher than those six, as Maryland State Police officials warned it’s possible motorists were also on the bridge when it crumbled into the Patapsco.

Officials reported that cars in the water had been detected by sonar technology, with the water reaching a depth of approximately 50 feet.

Survival in the water, given the temperature, would be short, possibly two to three hours. The water temperature was about 48 degrees.

The 1.6-mile bridge, built in 1977, spanned the Baltimore Harbor and Patapsco River.

The collapse that has indefinitely halted the flow of ships in and out of Baltimore could hurt the local economy, strain supply chains, and scramble deliveries along the US East Coast.

The BBC reported that a mayday signal was sent when the ship was approaching the bridge, which gave police time to stop cars driving onto the bridge and “saved lives”, Governor Moore said. He said the vessel had been moving at a “very, very rapid” eight knots, or roughly nine mph (15km/h).

An unclassified memo from the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Agency obtained by the BBC’s US partner CBS says the Dali had “lost propulsion.”

A slow-motion track and analysis of the nearly 8-minute MV Dali departure and crash:

THE CONSTRUCTION WORKERS, FOREIGN NATIONALS

Six construction workers are now presumed dead after a 984-foot cargo ship packed with cargo hit the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, causing it to collapse early Tuesday. The workers were fathers and family men from Mexico and Central American countries, according to officials and distraught loved ones.

The men were fixing potholes on the roadbeds of the Francis Key Scott Bridge when the tanker hit the bridge and took it down.

Two workers were saved from the river, and the others went missing.

“They’re fathers with families. They’re people who came to earn their bread each day,” their grieving coworker Jesus Campos, who was not on the bridge, told The Wall Street Journal of the missing men.

A father of three from El Salvador has been identified as one of the missing, as has a father of two from Honduras — both of whom had lived in the US for almost two decades.  Two Guatemalan nationals are among those unaccounted for, and some of those missing are Mexican nationals.

Miguel Luna and Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval are the only two identified among the half-dozen presumed dead, according to reports.

The six known victims — who all worked for Brawner Builders — originally emigrated from Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico, according to officials from the different countries.

Divers will return to the water today to search for the missing. There is a strong current that could have carried bodies away.

The National Transportation Safety Board, leading the crash investigation, will likely board the ship today for the first time.

What Was Going On Before and During the Crash

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