THE BODY OF the sixth and final victim who died after a container ship struck a bridge in the US city of Baltimore has been recovered, Maryland state authorities have said.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge, a major transit route into the busy port of Baltimore, collapsed on 26 March when the Dali container ship lost power and collided into a support column, killing six roadway construction workers.

The final victim recovered was identified by authorities as 37-year-old Jose Mynor Lopez, a construction worker from Baltimore, Maryland, who had been working on the bridge when it collapsed.

“Today, Jose Mynor Lopez, the sixth and final missing victim, was recovered,” Baltimore Mayor Brandon M Scott said on X, formerly Twitter.

“It is impossible to overstate how important it is that we’ve been able to bring each of these Marylanders home to their families, and the small amount of closure to their families it brings.”

He added that they do not have to bear their grief alone – “we will forever be with them”.

Scott also posted the statement in Spanish.

The Unified Command, a joint task force made up of police, the coast guard and government agencies responding to the disaster, said Lopez’s family members had been notified.

Maryland State Police said the recovery of the body was a “milestone” in recovery efforts.

Work to fully reopen the shipping channel would continue “as we close this chapter in this (recovery) effort,” Scott said.

The 300-meter Dali ship had issued a Mayday call moments before the collision which gave police time to stop traffic to the bridge, likely saving lives.

But an eight-man construction crew repairing potholes on the bridge could not be reached in time, and plummeted with the tons of concrete and twisted steel into the Patapsco River.

Two workers were rescued alive, one briefly hospitalised and the other uninjured.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Transportation Safety Board have both opened criminal investigations into the disaster.

With reporting by © AFP 2024