The 22-strong crew of the Dali container ship first realised something was horribly wrong at 1.24am on Monday night, when they lost power while sailing along the Patapsco River.
The vessel was 30 minutes into a 27-day journey from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, carrying cargo for the shipping giant Maersk and sailing under the Singaporean flag.
But as it approached the Francis Scott Key Bridge, Baltimore’s gateway to the Chesapeake Bay, the lights went out. The crew, helmed by two local “pilots” trained to traverse the bay, immediately contacted the Maryland Department of Transportation and issued a mayday call.
Officials on land watched in horror as they realised it was too late to stop the ship drifting, and frantically closed both the road across the bridge and shipping lane beneath it.
The ship’s power returned briefly, then turned off again, and smoke began to billow across the river.
Shortly before 1.29am, the Dali collided with a pillar almost halfway across the bridge, collapsing three of its main spans and trapping the vessel underneath steel trusses.
Vehicles on the bridge were sent hurtling into the freezing water, and a group of young people relaxing in a park on the south side of the bridge watched in horror as the bridge collapsed almost entirely in less than 30 seconds.
At 1.30am, the Baltimore fire department was alerted to an emergency, beginning a search and rescue operation that would involve dozens of local, state and federal agencies.
As initial reports suggested that eight construction workers had been repairing potholes on the 1.6-mile bridge when the ship struck, the task facing rescue workers became clear.
A person can survive in 8C water for around an hour before losing consciousness, and around three hours before dying, according to estimates by the National Centre for Cold Water Safety.
But the situation was complicated by the fact that sonar identified cars that had fallen to the bottom of the 50ft shipping channel. The strong tides of the Chesapeake Bay made the rescue job even harder.
As the minutes ticked by, a fire department spokesman said responders were dealing with a “developing mass casualty event”. Two people were pulled from the water, one unharmed and another in a serious condition.
Jen Woof, who lives on the south side of the river, was woken on Tuesday morning by her son, Jayden, who had crossed the bridge three times – the last time just three minutes before it collapsed.
Jayden had expected to spend the night with his girlfriend on the north side of the river, but travelled back home after the pair had an argument. Feeling guilty about the incident, he drove back to apologise, but his girlfriend sent him away. The third time he crossed, he was one of the last people to do so.
“He got over the bridge just three minutes before the bridge collapsed,” Ms Woof told The Telegraph.
“He was actually almost to our house when his girlfriend started texting him to ask if he was OK. He thought she was texting because they were arguing, and she said the bridge had collapsed.
“He came into my house, frantically panicking and yelling for me and showing me a video.”
Kayte O’Neill said she first heard about the disaster in a text from a friend on Tuesday morning.
“My literal response back was, ‘BRB [be right back], I’m going to throw up.’ And I did in fact throw up,” she said.
“I just feel bad for the people who are watching their screens because they had people who were on that bridge. I can’t even put myself in their shoes. I can’t.”
As the sun rose, search and rescue teams ran a complex operation involving helicopters, dive teams and drones searching the river for possible survivors.
A senior source involved in the operation told The Telegraph at 7.45am that the “odds are not looking good”.
By afternoon, the authorities had identified six missing people who were thought to have spent almost 12 hours in the water.
An underwater investigation found a concrete lorry…
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