The clearance of the huge bridge which collapsed this week in Baltimore, in the United States, must begin on Saturday a process which promises to be long and difficult, local authorities announced.
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A crane must lift a first piece of the structure previously cut by the emergency services.
“This is a first step before many, many others,” Maryland State Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld said at a press conference. “But it’s an important step as we begin this process.”
A US Coast Guard official, Shannon Gilreath, explained that a crane capable of lifting more than a hundred tonnes would be mobilized to move the cut part. He could not give the measurements of the room in question.
Maryland Governor Wes Moore clarified that it was not a part of the structure that collapsed on the container ship Dali, still on site.
The boat sank into the Francis Scott Key Bridge in the middle of the night earlier this week due to propulsion problems.
The governor explained that the aim was to clear an entire section of the bridge in order to open a “temporary channel”, and so that more boats could participate in the operations, but that this process would take “days”.
Clearing the bridge and freeing the container ship is a priority for local authorities, aware of the economic impact of blocking the Port of Baltimore.
“At least 8,000 dock workers have jobs that have been directly affected,” the governor said.
He also began the press conference with a thought for the victims of the tragedy.
Six workers who were working on the bridge at the time of the accident are considered dead.
The bodies of two of them were found. Operations to find the other remains are still interrupted, because the authorities currently consider the work of divers at the accident site too dangerous.
