End of an era in Baltimore after bridge collapse leaves residents in disbelief
On the banks of the Patapsco river, hundreds of people from across Baltimore gather in the early evening sun.
Most are taking pictures with their mobile phones and can’t quite fathom what they are seeing. The Francis Scott Key bridge, a fixture of this city for half a century, had been destroyed in less than ten seconds.
Through the day, they had watched the pictures on television and seen the CCTV of the cargo ship hitting one of the bridge’s support pillars, collapsing the whole structure almost immediately. But many felt they needed to witness it for themselves.
“It’s unreal,” one woman said, “I actually can’t believe it is true, that it’s gone.”
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Many of those who live on the banks of the river had been woken by the noise of the impact just before 1.30am. Jim Wood’s house overlooks the Key Bridge.
“The house shook a little bit,” he told me, “at first I thought it was a sonic boom from an aeroplane, I’ve never heard a sound quite like it, it lasted for six to ten seconds, and then, it was just indescribable.”
In the distance, a rib boat with flashing red lights circled the wreckage of the container ship and a rescue helicopter circled above. But as night fell, 18 hours after the collapse, any hope of finding survivors was officially extinguished.
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New angle shows moment bridge hit
Authorities declared this no longer a search and rescue operation. It is now the job of specialist divers to recover the bodies of the six people still missing, all of whom were working overnight on the bridge to repair potholes.
But with dangerous debris in the water, coupled with changing tides, it could take some time to complete.
Among those missing is Miguel Luna from El Salvador. At his house, a family member told me they are distraught as they wait for news.
Some of them were taken by police to a location in Baltimore where they could be with the other families of the missing. All of those unaccounted for worked for Brawner Builders.
At a nearby petrol station, their colleague, Jose Campos, is wearing an orange hat and a hoodie bearing the Brawner Builders name. He does not know where else to wait for news.
“My friends were working there, it’s a very hard day,” he told me. “My supervisor called me in the morning and told me they had rescued one of my colleagues but he was in a coma.
“I never imagined something this awful could happen. The path where the boat goes was supposed to be a safe zone.”
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Bridge collapse: How did it happen?
The ship had departed Baltimore harbour at 1.04am and was less than half an hour into a 27 day journey to Sri Lanka when it ploughed into the bridge.
Crew aboard the ship had issued a mayday call minutes before impact saying they had lost power and were heading for the bridge.
Officials on either side of the bridge reportedly stemmed the flow of traffic, potentially avoiding an even more deadly disaster.
“By being able to stop cars from coming over the bridge these people are heroes. They saved lives last night,” Maryland governor, Wes Moore, said.
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Some structural engineering experts claimed that the size and weight of the cargo ship, coupled with the position it struck the bridge, made a total collapse inevitable.
I asked the governor if he believed that was that case. “We’re still in the process of investigating exactly what happened,” he said, “so we don’t have any further details about whether or not it was inevitable but the bridge was actually fully up to code”.
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Timeline of Baltimore bridge collapse
While President Joe Biden promised to “move heaven and Earth” to reopen the port and rebuild the bridge as “soon as humanly possible,” Governor Moore accepted it would not be easy – or quick.
“This is going to be a long-term build,” he said. “We are going to rebuild in a way that remembers the people who this tragedy has impacted, and also do it in a way that honours the community that it serves.”
The people of Baltimore continue to visit the best vantage point in the city to see what remains of the bridge. There is an element of morbid fascination in it but also the sense that for many it represents the end of an era and a sheer disbelief that the bridge is no more.
Donald Trump has signed an executive order to open a migrant detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.
Speaking before making the act official, Mr Trump said that thousands of migrants who cannot be deported to their home countries will be held at the complex, on the island of Cuba.
“I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay,” he said.
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“Most people don’t even know about it. We have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.
“Some of them are so bad we don’t even trust the countries to hold them, because we don’t want them coming back.”
It comes as Mr Trump’s controversial pick for health secretary – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. – faced a hearing committee where he was grilled on his views, including on vaccines and abortion.
At its peak, about 680 people were held at the American-run prison in Cuba. File pic: AP
Guantanamo Bay was set up in 2002 by then president George W. Bush to hold detainees in the wake of 9/11 and the War on Terror.
Only 15 prisoners – including Ramzi bin al Shibh, accused of being a 9/11 co-conspirator – remain at the detention centre.
At its peak, about 680 people, most suspected of terrorism and being “illegal enemy combatants”, were held at the American-run prison in Cuba.
The facility has been criticised by human rights groups and legal campaigners over potential breaches of international laws and conditions.
Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel deemed the decision as “an act of brutality” in a message on his X account, and he described the base as one “located in illegally occupied Cuba territory”.
In response to Mr Trump’s announcement, former White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci – who briefly served under the previous Trump administration – said: “Also known as a concentration camp.
“Yet no dissent. No courageous political leader willing to stand up to this.”
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RFK Jr faces Senate hearing
Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Kennedy – the president’s pick to be health secretary – faced a grilling over his views on vaccines, abortion and Medicaid at a Senate confirmation hearing.
Appearing at the Capitol, Democratic senators raised some of the 71-year-old’s previous remarks comparing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to Nazi death camps, linking school shootings to antidepressants, and his claim that “no vaccine is safe and effective”.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr was grilled on vaccines, abortion and Medicaid at his confirmation hearing. Pic: AP
One senator, Sheldon Whitehouse, told Mr Kennedy “frankly, you frighten people” when discussing an outbreak of measles in Rhode Island – its first since 2013.
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The nominee said he did “not have a broad proposal for dismantling” Medicaid – a state and federal taxpayer-funded healthcare programme – and dismissed claims he was anti-vaccine by saying his children were vaccinated.
Mr Kennedy – the son of Robert F Kennedy and nephew of former US president John F Kennedy – was also questioned on his previous support for abortion and was shown statements as recent as from when he was running for president as an independent.
He said he now agrees with the president that “every abortion is a tragedy”.
Federal funding pause memo rescinded
It also comes after Mr Trump’s budget office rescinded an order freezing spending on federal grants – less than two days after it sparked legal challenges across the US.
The order on Monday sparked uncertainty over a financial lifeline for states, schools and organisations that rely on trillions of dollars from Washington.
However, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told Sky’s US partner network NBC that the freeze itself has not been withdrawn and that it was simply a cancellation of the memo ordering it.
Lord Mandelson says calling Donald Trump a “danger to the world” in 2019 was “ill-judged and wrong”.
The former Labour minister has been named as the next UK ambassador to the US, although there have been questions about whether President Trump will accept him.
Speaking to Fox News, Lord Mandelson walked back his criticisms from the president’s first term in office.
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The 71-year-old told the conservative-backing US TV channel: “I consider my remarks about President Trump as ill-judged and wrong.
“I think times and attitudes towards the president have changed since then.
“I think people have been impressed, not just by the extraordinary second mandate that he has received from the American people, but the dynamism and energy with which he approached not just the campaign but government as well.”
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Many Labour figures, including the now Foreign Secretary David Lammy, criticised Mr Trump before, during and after his first term in the White House.
Now they are in government and Mr Trump is back in power in Washington DC, language has become more diplomatic.
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Trump aide calls Mandelson a ‘moron’
Lord Mandelson told the Alain Elkann Interviews podcast previously: “What Donald Trump represents and believes is an anathema to mainstream British opinion.”
He added: “Even those who have a sneaking admiration for Donald Trump because of his personality, nonetheless regard him as reckless, and a danger to the world.”
The likely new ambassador criticised Mr Trump’s attitude to a previous holder of that office, and said the president was “little short of a white nationalist and a racist”.
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Speaking now, Lord Mandelson praised Mr Trump, saying he was a “nice” and “fair-minded person” who could become “one of the most consequential American presidents I have known in my adult life”.
He added: “I think that with the approach he is taking to government, which frankly just seems to us in Britain so much more organised, it’s so much more coherent, he seems to be so much more clear in what he wants to do, we take encouragement from that, that gives us greater confidence.”
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