(PatriotWise.com) — The six road workers missing after Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed were all presumed dead, Maryland State Police Superintendent Roland Butler announced on Tuesday evening.
The six men were repairing potholes on the bridge at the time the container ship Dali brought the bridge down in the early hours of Tuesday. Two other workers were rescued. One was unhurt, while the other was transported to the University of Maryland Medical Center, where he was listed in serious condition.
According to reports, police were about to alert the construction crew about the container ship when the bridge collapsed.
This wasn’t the first time a bridge collapsed after being struck by a vessel.
According to a report from the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure, from 1960 until 2015, there were 35 bridge collapses globally following a collision that resulted in 342 deaths. Eighteen of those 65 collapses occurred in the United States.
According to the Associated Press, 14 people were killed in Webbers Falls, Oklahoma, on May 26, 2002, after a barge struck the I-40 bridge over the Arkansas River. A 500-foot section of the bridge collapsed, and the vehicles on it plunged into the river. Another 11 people were injured.
After a tugboat pushing a barge hit the Queen Isabella Causeway in Texas in September 2001, a midsection of the bridge dropped 80 feet into the bay, killing eight people.
Speaking from the White House on Tuesday afternoon, President Biden thanked the rescue workers who searched for survivors and vowed that the federal government would remain on site for “as long as it takes.”
The president said the federal government should pay for the reconstruction of the Francis Scott Key Bridge and called on Congress to approve the funding.
State and federal officials are investigating the collapse. However, federal authorities said on Tuesday that the incident did not appear to be intentional, nor was there any evidence to connect the crash to terrorism.
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