The United States Government announced this Thursday, March 28, that it will allocate a first batch of US$60 million to rebuild the gigantic bridge in Baltimore (Maryland) that collapsed last Tuesday due to the attack of a ship that lost control.
In addition, the Baltimore community collected about US$98,000 this Thursday in solidarity with the families of the victims of the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge last Tuesday, which resulted in the death of six workers, all Latin Americans, and left two more wounded.
The government’s emergency funds will be transferred to the Maryland Department of Transportation and will cover the initial costs of repair work on the Francis Scott Key Bridge, the White House said in a statement.
Such resources “will help Maryland begin urgent work and more resources will follow as recovery and rebuilding efforts progress,” wrote federal Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.
These funds, known as “quick release” money, correspond to an initial payment by the government to help restore essential transportation, the announcement highlighted.
The 60 million will help pay for debris removal, demolitions, detours, emergency repairs, among other tasks.
The Secretary of Transportation assured on March 27 that it will not be “neither quick, nor easy, nor cheap” to rebuild the bridge, a key infrastructure for the port of Baltimore, one of the most important in the country in the Atlantic.
The container ship Dali hit the Francis Scott Key bridge at 1:29 a.m. on Tuesday, causing much of the infrastructure to collapse in just a few seconds.
At least six employees of a company doing repair work on the bridge lost their lives in the accident. All of them were migrants, originally from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
For now, only the bodies of two of the deceased have been recovered, Alejandro Fernández Fuentes, 35 years old and of Mexican nationality, and Dorlián Castillo Cabrera, 26 years old and born in Guatemala.
Before the collision, the container ship’s crew issued an emergency warning, which cut off vehicle traffic on the bridge and prevented a major tragedy, according to authorities.
However, it is not yet clear whether the workers, who were fixing potholes on the bridge at the time of the collapse, received this notice.
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