Biden vows to ‘move heaven and earth’ to rebuild Baltimore bridge
Joe Biden pledged to “move heaven and earth” to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge as he said the federal government would foot the bill for repairing it, writes The Telegraph.
A Singapore-flagged cargo ship destroyed the bridge in the early hours of Tuesday morning after suffering a power failure, in what the US President said was a “terrible accident”.
Mr Biden said the “top priority” was to rescue any survivors, and that eight people were unaccounted for. Authorities are searching for a construction crew who were working on the bridge when it collapsed.
“I’ve directed my team to move heaven and earth to reopen the port and to reopen the bridge as soon as humanly possible,” Mr Biden said at a press conference.
He added: “We’re going to spend all the federal resources they need as we respond to this emergency. I mean all the federal resources. And we’re going to rebuild that port together.”
The ship that crashed into Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge on Tuesday morning was previously detained in Antwerp after a collision.
Dali, a Singapore-flagged container ship, was leaving the Belgian port in 2016 when its bow swung around, causing its stern to scrape along the quay.
Nobody was injured in the incident and the vessel did not leak any fuel, but it was nevertheless detained by the authorities, according to the maritime incident archive Shipwrecklog.
