In a shocking update seven weeks on from a cargo ship crashing into the Francis Scott Key Bridge, it has been revealed that the ship’s crew members still remain onboard.
In the early hours of March 26, The Dali crashed into the Baltimore bridge, bringing the 2,632 meter-long bridge crumbling down into the water below and claiming the lives of six construction workers.
The ordeal rocked the city to its core, with the bridge having connected Baltimore to Dundalk.
Construction on the bridge started in 1972 and was completed five years later. The Key Bridge had been a staple of Baltimore, but most of the overpass now sits at the bottom of Maryland’s Patapsco River.
Despite it being almost two months since the tragic ordeal occured, the crew onboard The Dali shockingly remain on board.
The 21 men – 20 Indians and a Sri Lankan national – are thousands of miles from their homes, and it remains unclear when they’ll be freed from the ship.
The ship was making its way from Baltimore to Sri Lanka when tragedy struck and The Dali lost power and ended up crashing into one of the bridge’s pillars.
The ship crashed into Key Bridge in the early hours of March 26. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Part of the bridge collapsed onto the boat but on Monday (May 13), controlled explosions were conducted by the US Army Corps of Engineers in a bid to remove parts of the bridge debris from The Dali, with the intention of the ship eventually being re-floated.
It currently sits just 3.7km away from Baltimore’s port, but it hasn’t been revealed when attempts will be made to move the large vessel.
While the ship might move soon, the crew won’t.
This is down to visa restrictions, a lack of required shore passes and parallel ongoing investigations by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and FBI, BBC News reports.
The FBI are said to have confiscated the crew members’ phones as part of the ongoing investigation.
Joshua Messick, executive director of the Baltimore International Seafarers’ Center, has since spoken about the hardships the crew’s facing in the wake of being trapped and without their personal devices, labelling it as a ‘sad situation’.
Controlled explosions around the ship were carried out on May 13. (ROBERTO SCHMIDT/AFP via Getty Images)
He said: “They can’t do any online banking. They can’t pay their bills at home. They don’t have any of their data or anyone’s contact information, so they’re really isolated right now.
“They just can’t reach out to the folks they need to, or even look at pictures of their children before they go to sleep. It’s really a sad situation.”
But Darrell Wilson, a spokesperson for Synergy Marine Group, has said that the 21 men were given new cell phones to use, as per The Independent.
However, it currently remains unclear why the devices were seized. It’s also unknown when the 21 individuals will be able to leave the ship.
