Washington:
The body of the sixth and final victim who died after a container ship struck a bridge in the US city of Baltimore has been recovered, Maryland state authorities said on Tuesday.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge, a major transit route to the busy Port of Baltimore, collapsed on March 26 when the Dali container ship lost power and struck a support column, killing six road construction workers.
The victim was identified by authorities as 37-year-old Jose Mynor Lopez, a construction worker from Baltimore, Maryland, who had been working on the bridge when it collapsed.
“Today, Jose Mynor Lopez, the sixth and final missing victim, was found,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon M Scott said on X, formerly Twitter.
The Unified Command, a joint task force made up of police, coast guard and government agencies that responded to the disaster, said Lopez’s family members had been notified.
Maryland State Police said the body’s recovery was a “milestone” in recovery efforts.
Work to fully reopen the navigation channel would continue “as we close this chapter of this (restoration) effort,” Scott said.
The 300-metre Dali ship had issued a Mayday call just before the collision, giving police time to stop traffic to the bridge, likely saving lives.
But an eight-man construction crew repairing holes in the bridge could not be reached in time and dumped the tons of concrete and twisted steel into the Patapsco River.
Two workers were rescued alive, one was briefly hospitalized and the other was unharmed.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Transportation Safety Board have both opened criminal investigations into the disaster.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
