Baltimore Bridge collapse LIVE updates: Francis Scott Key Bridge collapses after being hit by cargo ship; major rescue effort underway

The investigation into the collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore will move quickly to address whether the impact that brought the bridge down was deliberate, CNN’s senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe said.

“It starts with that video [of the collapse], and you can’t look at that video without asking, how could this happen?” McCabe said.

“We don’t want to suggest that this was an intentional act, but it’s of course, something that the investigators on the ground who are trying to understand how this horrible disaster took place are going to want to consider.”

The Patapsco River is also a “heavily trafficked commercial shipping area which only increases your questions about, why did it happen to this ship when so many ships pass through that same space safely, probably hundreds of times a day,” McCabe said.

Investigators would begin by piecing together a “complete timeline of who was on the boat – who was in what positions, who was actually piloting the boat, and who had access to the controls that could have steered or directed the vessel.”

McCabe said investigators would also look into the crew’s “training experience, whether or not they’ve been involved in any prior incidents on this boat or any other boats, and they are going to want to know about their conduct leading up to the event, whether they had the required amount of rest.”

The investigation would also likely look into the ship’s service record, “whether or not it’s ever had any issues in the past relating to its control or direction … and, in terms of its course, was this something that happened suddenly as they approached the bridge or was it an errant course they had been set upon some minutes or even hours before.”

Those questions did not inherently imply responsibility, McCabe said, but were “the sorts of generalised questions that investigators are going to be asking to get an understanding of what was happening on that boat in the moments leading up to this event.”

This image by Washington DC-based photojournalist Jim Lo Scalzo shows for the first time the extent of the damage to the Dali container ship.

The image, which you can see below, reveals a huge slice has been taken out of the vessel’s bow as a result of the collapsing bridge. Portions of the massive bridge span are resting on the ship.

Synergy Marine Group earlier confirmed all crew members and two pilots aboard the Dali at the time of the incident were accounted for. Singapore-flagged container ship Dali crashed into the bridge.

“Whilst the exact cause of the incident is yet to be determined, the Dali has now mobilised its Qualified Individual Incident response service,” it said.

Almost all the agencies involved in the Baltimore rescue effort have underwater search and rescue teams, according to CNN’s senior law enforcement analyst Andrew McCabe.

“These are such specialised skills, people who have the competence and the capability to deploy very specialised underwater equipment used to deal with particular shapes in very dark and cold water, which I’m sure you’re dealing with here,” McCabe said.

Those teams include an FBI-specialised underwater search and rescue team “that typically is used for identifying and recovering evidence from crimes”.

He said the multi-agency response would bring enormous resources to the rescue effort.

“There is an incident command system which provides the structure of the response to any event like this,” McCabe said.

That process defines which agencies lead in which situations, and designates which individuals are in overall command.

“Then that’s broken down into all sorts of other systems, and I would expect, you know, the officials involved are going through that process right now and getting as many hands involved in this problem as they possibly can,” he said.

“The response to a mass casualty event like this is really a science in and of itself, and it takes folks with vast experience and familiarity with the resources that are available in the region and the connections … to bring the right folks to the table at the time.”

US secretary of transportation Pete Buttigieg has confirmed that he has spoken with Maryland governor Wes Moore and Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott and offered them whatever federal emergency assistance they require to deal with the bridge collapse.

In the US, it is normal practice for a state to declare an emergency to access federal resources to help address the situation.

The National Emergencies Act also allows the US president to declare a national emergency without a specific request from a state.

CNN reporter Gabe Cohen said the priority for rescue crews was “to determine whether there were still people in the water” and get them out as quickly as possible.

“They have divers in the water, they are trying to locate people,” Cohen said.

The river’s temperature at this time of year is less than 48 degrees Fahrenheit (8 degrees Celsius), Cohen said.

“It’s cold water,” she said. “People who end up submerged in that water would likely have one to three hours in which they could survive. The crews are desperately trying to get people out.”

Baltimore City Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright stressed that the investigation into the cause of the crash will take some time.

“There are still lots of pieces that we still have to put together and it’s going to take some time to accurately do that,” Cartwright said.

“We don’t want to speculate too much, but, you know, [we will] methodically work to identify exactly what happened and how we can mitigate this incident.

“We’re doing things methodically and safely to ensure that our divers and everyone operating here on the scene is safe and that we’re able to make progress without, you know, causing adverse harm to anyone else.”

A number of agencies have now converged on Baltimore to help with the rescue effort.

They include the Baltimore County Fire Department, the Maryland Department of the Environment, the US Coast Guard and the Maryland Transportation Authority Police.

“This is a mass incident that we have underway right now,” Baltimore City Fire Department spokesman Kevin Cartwright said. “We anticipate being here for some days to come.”

The US Coast Guard had been tasked with “establishing contact with the vessel [which struck the bridge] to assure and assess whether or not there were any injuries of individuals on that vessel and identify, provide the appropriate treatment, care and transportation to those individuals.”

A number of services have also deployed divers to comb the river.

“I’m actually standing at the water’s edge, I can actually see quite a number of emergency response vessels in the water,” Cartwright said.

“We have our dive team members actively looking for individuals as well as vehicles in the water,” Cartwright added. “Considering that it’s early in the morning hours, visibility is quite challenging.”

Livestream footage shows the moment Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge collapsed after the Dali, a Singapore-flagged container ship, struck a pylon in the early hours of the morning, local time.

The ship left the port of Baltimore at 1.18am, according to myshiptracking.com. A YouTube stream of the port shows the Dali coming into view of the bridge five minutes later, about 1.23am.

The vessel hit one of the bridge’s pylons just before 1.29am.

The bridge stands for a couple of seconds before the collapse commences. It takes less than 20 seconds for the whole structure to collapse into the water.

Photos are beginning to emerge of the rescue effort under way in the pre-dawn darkness in Baltimore.

It’s just after 5.15am in the city and emergency workers, including divers, are searching for at least 20 people believed to have fallen into the Patapsco River after a cargo ship hit a key arterial bridge over Baltimore Harbour, causing it to collapse into the water.

Power has been disconnected on the bridge to ensure the safety of workers as they carry out the rescue effort.

A caller to the WBAL News Radio channel said the biggest challenge for rescue crews was the fact that they are working in almost complete darkness.

There are at least three roadblocks manned by emergency personnel rerouting traffic around the incident, which has been called a potential “mass casualty event”.

A media staging area was also being assembled, with a press conference expected soon.

The station’s traffic reporter Tony Thornton said vehicles were being diverted into one of several tunnels which cross the river.

Like Sydney Harbour, Baltimore’s Patapsco River has several crossings, including the now collapsed Francis Scott Key bridge and an underwater tunnel.

A witness to the crash told WBAL News Radio that the lights on the ship appeared to go out, and then come back on, just before the impact, suggesting there may have been a power outage on the ship before the incident.

The ship’s manager, Synergy Marine Group, has said the exact cause of the incident is “yet to be determined”.