The ship that crashed into the bridge was transporting hazardous material

The merchant ship that crashed into the bridge in the early hours of Tuesday morning Baltimore takes on board 4,700 containers, 56 of them with dangerous materialalthough they do not pose a public danger, US authorities assured this Wednesday.

Vice admiral Peter Gauthierdeputy commander of operations for the United States Coast Guard, explained at a press conference that “the vessel is stable, but still has more than a million and a half gallons heating oil and lubricating oil on board and there are 4,700 cargo containers on board.”

In the accident that led to the collapse of the bridge Francis Scott Key A total of 13 containers that “do not contain dangerous substances” fell into the water.

“There is no threat to the public from hazardous materials on the ship. Therefore, we obtained the ship’s manifest carried by container ships and performed an analysis of the types of hazardous materials on the hub and the ship,” he said.

The press conference was held in White Houseafter both officials met in The Oval Office with the president Joe Biden to update you on the latest details of what happened.

Gautier was accompanied at the press conference by the US Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigiegand none of them wanted to detail the investigation into what happened.

“We prefer to leave all information to the authorities who are investigating it,” he said National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)an organization independent of the United States government dedicated to accident research.

The vice admiral confirmed that the ship’s crew were “still on board and cooperating” with the investigation. “They remain on board and the predominantly Indian and Sri Lankan crew are very involved in the dialogue and investigation.”

US Secretary of Transportation, Pete Buttigiegstated for his part that “the main priority” of the Coast Guard now is to restore the waterway for maritime transport “in one of the ports.

The Dali container ship hit the bridge Francis Scott Key around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday, causing much of the infrastructure to collapse.

At least 6 employees of the company carrying out repairs on the bridge have lost their lives, all of them of Central American and Mexican origin, and the recovery of bodies continues.