Baltimore Bridge Collapse

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       Recent Bridge Collapses Raise Questions About Modern Shipping The crash in Baltimore was at least the second in just over a month in which a container ship hit a major road bridge.

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       The site where a container ship hit a bridge in Guangzhou, China, in February.Credit...China Daily/Via Reuters

       By Keith Bradsher

       March 26, 2024

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       Tuesday’s crash was at least the second in just over a month in which a container ship hit a major road bridge, raising questions about the safety standards of increasingly large ships and the ability of bridges around the world to withstand crashes.

       On Feb. 22 in Guangzhou, a port in southern China, a much smaller vessel carrying stacks of containers hit the base of a two-lane bridge, causing vehicles to fall. Officials said that five people were killed.

       The crashes have also raised questions about whether more ships should be required to be ready to drop anchors quickly during port emergencies, and whether tugboats should accompany more vessels as they enter and leave harbors.

       There has not been a final report on the Guangzhou incident, and investigators have barely begun to look at what happened in Baltimore. But ship collision barriers are standard around the support piers of bridges over major waterways like the entrance to Baltimore’s harbor. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York City, for example, has massive barriers of concrete and rocks around the bases of the piers that support it.

       How Fenders Might Have Protected Against Bridge Collapse

       The Francis Scott Key Bridge did not have an obvious fender system, or protective barriers, to redirect or prevent a ship from crashing into the bridge piers.

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       Engineers point out that some other bridges have more robust barriers. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York City has rock walls surrounding its piers.

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       Island barriers were installed around the Sunshine Skyway Bridge piers in Tampa Bay, Fla., after a ship crash caused the span’s collapse in 1980.

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       Even smaller bridges like this one near Cape May, N.J., have fenders.

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       While a full determination is not yet possible, some engineers told The Times that the collapse of the Key Bridge might have been avoided if its piers had more effective barriers.

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       It was not immediately clear how old the barriers are around the piers that supported the bridge in Baltimore. The bridge was built almost half a century ago and designed before then. Vessels have become considerably larger in that time.

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       Keith Bradsher is the Beijing bureau chief for The Times. He previously served as bureau chief in Shanghai, Hong Kong and Detroit and as a Washington correspondent. He has lived and reported in mainland China through the pandemic. More about Keith Bradsher

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