Rescue teams prepare to raise the first section of the collapsed Baltimore bridge

US officials said that rescue teams were preparing to lift the first part of the wreckage of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore from the water, on Saturday, to allow boats and tug boats to reach the accident site.

This is the first step in a complex process to reopen the city’s port, which has been closed since the steel bridge collapsed early Tuesday morning, killing six workers.

The accident occurred when a huge container ship collided with one of the bridge pillars, causing a large portion of the bridge to fall into the Patapsco River and impeding movement in the shipping channel in the Port of Baltimore.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore said in a press conference that part of the bridge’s steel superstructure will be cut into one piece so that it can be lifted via crane onto a barge and transported to the nearby Trade Point Atlantic site at Sparrows Point.

“This will eventually allow us to open a temporary channel…that will help us send more ships to the waters around the collapse site,” he added.

Moore declined to provide a timeline for completing this portion of the removal work.

He stated, “It will not take hours… nor will it take days, but once this stage of work is completed, we can transfer more tugs and more vessels and boats to the region to accelerate the pace of our work.”

“This is a very complex process,” Moore said of the effort to remove the bridge debris and open the Port of Baltimore to shipping traffic.

The bodies of two workers who were repairing the bridge deck at the time of the disaster were recovered, but Moore said that efforts to recover the bodies of four others who were presumed dead were still pending due to the difficulty of divers working amid such a large amount of debris. (free)