Authorities are searching for at least seven people after a portion of a major bridge in the US city of Baltimore collapsed after a large boat struck it and multiple vehicles fell into the water.
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Around 1.30am local time on Tuesday (4.30pm AEDT), a large vessel crashed into the Francis Scott Key bridge, catching on fire before sinking and causing multiple vehicles to fall into the water below, according to a video posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Footage on StreamTime Live Baltimore showed a large ship approaching the bridge and appearing to crash into the supporting structure. Most of the bridge is then seen to collapse.
"All lanes closed both directions for incident on I-695 Key Bridge. Traffic is being detoured," the Maryland Transportation Authority posted on X.
Mayor Brandon M Scott and Baltimore County executive Johnny Olszewski Jr posted that emergency personnel were responding and rescue efforts were underway.
Emergency responders were searching for at least seven people believed to be in the water, Kevin Cartwright, director of communications for the Baltimore Fire Department, told the Associated Press.
He said agencies received 911 calls around 1.30am local time reporting a vessel travelling outbound from Baltimore that had struck a column on the bridge, causing it to collapse. Multiple vehicles were on the bridge at the time, including one the size of a tractor-trailer.
"Our focus right now is trying to rescue and recover these people," Cartwright said. He said it's too early to know how many people were affected but called the collapse a "developing mass casualty event".
Cartwright said it appears there are "some cargo or retainers hanging from the bridge", creating unsafe and unstable conditions, and that emergency responders are operating cautiously as a result.
"This is a dire emergency," he said.
There are multiple reports the ship involved was the Singaporean flagged Dali, a container ship. The vesselfinder.com website shows it still at the site of the bridge.
The Francis Scott Key bridge is a 2.5 kilometre steel bridge that spans the Patapsco River. It's named after the writer of the US national anthem, the Star-Spangled Banner.
Baltimore is about 60km northwest of Washington DC and the 30th-most populous city in the US.
Australian Associated Press
