First link has video
That looks bad, fell down like it was made of matchsticks.
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It’s mass casualty event. Many vehicles/people fell into water at temperature around 50F.
I thought bridges on major rivers and ports had to be designed to take boat strikes.
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Is that like a new trend? Just a month or so ago, the exact same thing happened in China.
The container ship is Dali, which is Singapore-registered.
Terrible accident
1.6 miles and 4 lanes. All i can say is that it is ‘lucky’ that it hit with only 8 people on the bridge. Crazy.
Wes Moore said the crew on the ship were able to issue a “mayday” before colliding into the bridge, which allowed the authorities to stop incoming traffic from going onto the bridge.
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Isn’t Francis Scott Key the person who wrote the Star Spangled Banner?
Chinese hacking of Cargo ships and entire Ports has been a concern for a while in the ongoing Trade War.
This disrupts the entire Port of Baltimore and subsequent connections of Freight that drives over the bridge — which cannot go through existing tunnels — and connecting Trains.
https://www.axios.com/2024/02/21/biden-shipping-ports-cybersecurity
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/11/china-hacking-hawaii-pacific-taiwan-conflict/
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Indeed.
9th busiest port in U.S.
And I think 3rd busiest on the East Coast of the U.S.
Top 3 on East coast:
NY/NJ
Norfolk
Baltimore
Number 1 port in U.S. for container productivity:
the No. 1 port in the country for container productivity. In June, the Port moved more than 9.7 million tons of general cargo, and a record 79,644 TEUs. More than 808,000 TEUs were shipped through the Port in FY 2015. Only two months later, the Port reached a new milestone by bringing in 86,149 TEU containers in August.
Why would China want to disrupt US shipping? China sells stuff to the US.
Container ships grew extra huge 10-20 years ago. Not all port infrastructure in the US has caught up with the growth in sheer size of these newer ships. If this ship was going 15kph, and given its mass then the force of it striking the bridge would have been massive.
What’s odd about this is that somebody should have known about the necessary clearance for the FS Key bridge in Baltimore. Not sure if a tug had yet come out to escort, or just what happened.
I bet the Atlantic just off First Landing State Park outside Norfolk is teeming with inbound cargo ships by now, all milling around waiting for a dock, probably off Brooklyn, too.
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Web commentators said most likely a harbor master would have been in the cockpit until boat cleared out of channel into bigger water. The ship gave enough warning to bridge, that traffice was mostly stopped; otherwise, would’ve been a lot more autos on bridge
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China and the U.S. are in a major Trade War — and more broadly, China is trying to topple the U.S. and become the number one superpower on its quest for global domination.
“China’s hackers are positioning on American infrastructure in preparation to wreak havoc and cause real-world harm to American citizens and communities, if or when China decides the time has come to strike,” said excerpts of Wray’s prepared testimony released by the FBI.
Volt Typhoon malware enabled China to hide, among other things, pre-operational reconnaissance and network exploitation against critical infrastructure like our communications, energy, transportation and water sectors — steps China was taking, in other words, to find and prepare to destroy or degrade the civilian critical infrastructure that keeps us safe and prosperous,”
Ok, I had read that the ship struck a bridge footing after several power outages, but I’m not tracking the story on the web. Sounds like clearance may not have been an issue after all.
Anyway, Port of Baltimore is offline for foreseeable future.
Appears to be aiming for the gap, then power cuts out, makes a hard right straight into the pylon. Power came back on briefly before striking.
It wasn’t China after all.
Once I saw it’s a Singaporean ship my mind immediately went there as well. Chinese operated vessels love to register under a more reputable flag state, and Singapore is a popular choice.
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