'Bridge Collapse' Baltimore Port Expected to Normalize by Late May at the Earliest

US Army Corps of Engineers "Limited Opening at the End of April"
US Emergency Federal Budget of $60 Million Approved

Operations at the Port of Baltimore in Maryland, which served as the largest automobile import-export port in the United States before its closure due to a bridge collapse, are expected to normalize as early as the end of next month.

On the 5th (local time), according to U.S. internet media Axios and others, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) Baltimore District stated in a statement released the previous night that "the goal is to reopen the shipping channel with a width of 700 feet (approximately 213.3 meters) and a depth of 50 feet (approximately 15.2 meters) by the end of May."

President Joe Biden's official helicopter surveying the Baltimore bridge collapse site.
[Photo by Yonhap News]

Prior to that, they added that a limited access channel with a width of 280 feet (approximately 85.3 meters) and a depth of 35 feet (approximately 10.6 meters) would be opened by the end of April.

The USACE Baltimore District stated that once the limited access channel is opened, some container transport barges and automobile and agricultural machinery carriers will be able to enter and exit the Port of Baltimore again.

In the early morning of the 26th of last month, the Singapore-registered container ship 'Dali,' which had lost power and was drifting, collided with the large 2.6 km-long bridge 'Francis Scott Key Bridge' spanning the Port of Baltimore, causing it to collapse.

The relevant authorities quickly took measures such as restricting vehicle traffic, but contact was lost with eight construction workers who were repairing potholes. Two of the construction workers who fell into the river were rescued, three were found deceased, and the remaining three are missing.

The USACE announced that it will gradually remove thousands of tons of steel and concrete debris blocking access to the Port of Baltimore and tow the Dali, which remains stranded at the accident site under the rubble.

British broadcaster BBC reported that to this end, multiple small vessels equipped with sonar from the U.S. Navy and the large offshore crane 'Chesapeake,' capable of lifting 1,000 tons and previously used in the salvage operation of a sunken Soviet submarine in the Pacific, have been deployed to the site.

The challenge lies in cutting the tangled steel framework into sizes that can be lifted. There is a high risk that twisted steel could suddenly shift, endangering workers or causing further collapse.

Additionally, muddy water flowing into the Chesapeake Bay along the Patapsco River limits underwater visibility to only 30 to 60 centimeters, and concerns that over 700 tons of hazardous materials carried on the Dali could leak and cause an environmental disaster are also factors slowing the recovery work.

The U.S. government approved an emergency federal budget of $60 million (approximately 81.1 billion KRW) related to this accident, but the actual cost required for recovery is expected to be much higher.

David Trone, a U.S. Congressman (Democrat, Maryland), recently predicted in an interview with CBS that the total recovery cost could reach $100 million (approximately 135 billion KRW).

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.