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submitted 9 months ago by Hugin@lemmy.world to c/news@lemmy.world

A portion of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore has collapsed after a large boat collided with it early on Tuesday morning, sending multiple vehicles into the water.

At about 1.30am, a vessel crashed into the bridge, catching fire before sinking and causing multiple vehicles to fall into the water below, according to a video posted on X.

“All lanes closed both directions for incident on I-695 Key Bridge. Traffic is being detoured,” the Maryland Transportation Authority posted on X.

Matthew West, a petty officer first class for the coastguard in Baltimore, told the New York Times that the coastguard received a report of an impact at 1.27am ET. West said the Dali, a 948ft (29 metres) Singapore-flagged cargo ship, had hit the bridge, which is part of Interstate 695.

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[-] sylver_dragon@lemmy.world 135 points 9 months ago

The investigation report is going to be interesting. While bridges can only take so much punishment, they are usually designed to survive some collisions with their pylons. I wonder what the state of the bridge was, prior to the collapse. If it's anything like the rest of the infrastructure in the US, it was probably not good. Though, this may also be a case that the designers in the 70's planned for a collision with a cargo vessel of the times, which were tiny bath tub boats compared to the super container ships we have now. The Dali was built in 2015 she is a 300m ship capable of carrying 116851 tons. That's a lot of mass for the pylon and it's barriers to stop.

[-] grue@lemmy.world 133 points 9 months ago

I'm pretty sure no bridge is designed to survive a collision with a large cargo ship, even a brand new one. It would balloon the cost so much nobody would be willing to pay it.

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 22 points 9 months ago

I suspect there'll be a lot of places taking a good long look at their current chunks of concrete they put around bridge supports and wondering how they'd stand up to the monstrous ships that are now the norm.

This kind of incident may not happen often but it does happen.

[-] skulblaka@startrek.website 30 points 9 months ago

I imagine a lot of places may wonder about this and then kick that can down the road until someone does actually collide with their bridge.

[-] Blackmist@feddit.uk 13 points 9 months ago

!remindme 40 years.

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this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2024
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