Rescue ongoing as cars and people fall into water after ship strike causes Baltimore bridge to collapse
A major bridge has collapsed in the US city of Baltimore after it was hit by a cargo ship.
Footage shows a large section of the 1.6-mile-long Francis Scott Key Bridge falling into the Patapsco River, following the collision at around 1.30am local time (5.30am UK time).
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Vehicles can be seen in the video falling from the bridge.
Six people remain unaccounted for after two people were rescued from the water.
One of those rescued was in a “very serious condition” and is receiving treatment in hospital while the other was not injured.
According to officials, the ship had issued a mayday call to authorities that it had lost power before the collision. They later said it had lost propulsion and had dropped its anchors before the crash.
Baltimore bridge latest: Follow live updates
Pic: Reuters
CCTV and marine tracking data shows the ship, known as the Dali, lose power, adjust its course and start smoking around 60 seconds before it hits the bridge.
All Baltimore port traffic has been suspended until further notice, the Maryland Transport Authority, said.
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‘We’ve not seen evidence of a terror attack’
In an update on Tuesday afternoon, Wes Moore, governor of Baltimore, and Paul Wiedefeld, secretary of the Maryland Transport Authority, said those still missing are believed to be construction workers who were on the bridge fixing potholes.
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Daylight aerials show extent of bridge collapse
All 22 crew members on board the ship, including the two pilots, have been accounted for and there were no reports of injuries.
Mr Moore said intel from a preliminary investigation points to an accident. He said there is no evidence of a terrorism-related attack.
“To the victims of this tragedy and their loved ones all of our hearts are broken we feel your loss we are thinking of you,” Mr Moore said.
“We pray for the construction workers who were on the bridge and all who have been touched by this tragedy
We will get through this.”
Pic: Baltimore City Fire Department Rescue Team
Mayor of Baltimore, Brandon Scott, declared a local state of emergency which will be in place for the next 30 days as the search for the missing continues.
He said earlier that the collapse “looked like something out of an action movie”.
The National Transportation Safety Board is also conducting an investigation into the incident.
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‘It looked like something from an action movie’
More on the bridge collapse:
What do we know about bridge and the ship that hit it?
How did catastrophe happen?
Image shows damage to the ship. Pic: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
The 289m-long container ship was headed to Colombo in Sri Lanka at the time of the collision.
It was chartered by Danish shipping company Maersk, which said it was “horrified by what has happened”. It said its thoughts were with everyone affected.
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Watch marine traffic after bridge collapse
The same ship was previously involved in a minor incident when it hit a quay at the Port of Antwerp in Belgium in 2016, according to Vessel Finder and maritime accident site Shipwrecklog.
The vessel was reportedly damaged in the incident, but there were no injuries or pollution issues reported.
Pic: Baltimore City Fire Department Rescue Team
Bridge is ‘major artery’ for locals
The bridge, which is referred to locally as the Key Bridge, was described as a “major artery” for the area by resident Michael Brown.
“This is like an April Fools’ joke right now,” Mr Brown told Sky News’s US partner network NBC.
Local Michael Brown said the bridge collapse feels like an April Fools’ joke. Pic: NBC
“It [the bridge] is a major artery in the area not only for traffic but for the port. Hopefully, everyone is okay that is involved.”
Mr Brown said he uses the bridge to visit family and its destruction is a “major issue” – but he noted the “emphasis should be on getting whoever is in the water out”.
Coast guard vessel secures the perimeter at the scene. Pic: Reuters
The Interstate 695 – the road which runs across the bridge – was closed and traffic rerouted by the Maryland Transport Authority.
Impact on trade
The Port of Baltimore, which oceangoing ships reach by going under the bridge, is the 11th largest in the US, meaning its closure will cause knock-on effects for the industry.
Richard Meade, editor of Lloyd’s List – which provides news on the global maritime industry – said the collision will be a “significant and expensive” operation in terms of diverting marine traffic, the implications on trade and the rebuilding of the bridge itself.
The bridge before the collapse. File pic: Jon Bilous / Alamy
According to data from MarineTraffic, around 40 ships remain inside the closed port, with a further 30 having signalled that the port was their destination.
Built in 1977, the Key Bridge is one of the longest continuous truss bridges in the world, according to the National Steel Bridge Alliance.
It was named after the writer of The Star-Spangled Banner, the national anthem of the US, which was penned after a War of 1812 US-UK battle in Baltimore harbour.
David MacKenzie, chair of engineering consultancy, COWIfonden, predicted that rebuilding the bridge will cost 10 times more than the approximate $60m (£47m) spent on building it in the first place.
Tune into a special edition of The World with Yalda Hakim on Sky News tonight at 9pm.
A US company’s prototype jet has broken the sound barrier in a demonstration it hopes will pave the way for a successor to the Concorde.
Boom Supersonic’s XB-1 is the first civilian aircraft to achieve the feat since the British-French supersonic airliner, which was retired in 2003.
The XB-1 broke the sound barrier for the first time over the Mojave Desert in California.
The XB-1 demonstrator aircraft. Pic: Boom Supersonic
During the test flight, it reached an altitude of 35,000ft before accelerating to Mach 1.1 (844mph) – 10% faster than the speed of sound.
The jet, which was flown by Boom Supersonic’s chief test pilot Tristan “Geppetto” Brandenburg, went on to reach Mach 1.1 two more times.
A live stream showed the test flight as it happened.
The XB-1. Pic: Reuters
Denver-based Boom Supersonic hopes the XB-1 will pave the way for the development of Overture, the company’s supersonic commercial airliner.
The XB-1 is around 63ft-long, around one-third the size of Overture, which is intended to seat between 64 and 80 passengers and travel at speeds of up to Mach 1.7.
Such speeds would be around twice as fast as subsonic passenger jets, but still slightly slower than the Concorde.
The Overture has already been pre-ordered 130 times by companies such as American Airlines, United Airlines, and Japan Airlines.
A retired Concorde jet being moved to a museum in 2004. Pic: PA
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What happened to Concorde?
Concorde was a British-French supersonic airliner which predominantly flew routes between New York and London or Paris.
It could accelerate up to around Mach 2 (1,354mph) – more than twice the speed of sound – and carried around 100 passengers.
In July 2000 an Air France Concorde crashed shortly after take-off, killing all 109 on board and four people on the ground. It also led to the fleet being grounded for a year.
Maintenance issues, high operational costs and the impact of the 9/11 attacks on air travel led British Airways and Air France to retire the Concorde in 2003.
Donald Trump thinks the Chinese startup DeepSeek, which claims it has a technical advantage over US rivals, should be “a wakeup call” for American AI firms.
DeepSeek says its artificial intelligence models are comparable with those from US giants, like OpenAI which is behind ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini, but potentially a fraction of the cost.
That has triggered a fall in various US shares, especially chipmaker Nvidia which registered a record one-day loss for any company on Wall Street.
But the US president believes the success of the Chinese firm could be helpful to America’s AI aspirations.
“The release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company should be a wakeup call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win,” Mr Trump said in Florida.
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has promised to outperform rival firm DeepSeek. Pic: AP
He pointed to DeepSeek’s ability to use fewer computing resources. “I view that as a positive, as an asset… you won’t be spending as much, and you’ll get the same result, hopefully,” he added.
On Monday, the DeepSeek assistant had surpassed ChatGPT in downloads from Apple’s app store.
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has given his rival some acknowledgement in a post on X, reacting to DeepSeek’s R1 “reasoning” model – a core part of the AI technology which answers questions.
“DeepSeek’s r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price,” he wrote.
But Mr Altman was also defiant: “We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! we will pull up some releases.”
There have been concerns DeepSeek could undermine the potentially $500bn (£401bn) AI investment by OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank in Stargate which Mr Trump announced last week at the White House.
That project essentially aims to build vastly more computing power to boost AI development.
But while addressing Republicans in Miami on Monday, Mr Trump remained upbeat. He claimed that Chinese leaders had told him the US had the most brilliant scientists in the world.
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He indicated that if Chinese industry could come up with cheaper AI technology, US companies would follow.
“We always have the ideas. We’re always first. So I would say that’s a positive that could be very much a positive development.
“So instead of spending billions and billions, you’ll spend less, and you’ll come up with, hopefully, the same solution,” Mr Trump said.
The intense attention on the Chinese firm has not all been good news though. It reported suffering “large-scale malicious attacks” on its services.
The company said it was hit by a cyber attack on Monday which disrupted users’ ability to register on the site.
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