A container ship collided with the Francisco Scott Key Bridge over the Patapsco River in Baltimore, Maryland in the US, early in the morning on Mar 26, and the bridge collapsed. The Baltimore Port Authority announced the suspension of port arrivals and departures on the same day.
The U.S. Coast Guard declared a 2,000-yard safety zone in the surrounding waters. Seafarers were urged to avoid the area except during emergency navigation. Approximately 20 ships were stranded in the bay, making it impossible to go out of the bay. Unless the delivery of bunker oil was determined to be an emergency, it would be difficult to supply it from an oil terminal inside the bay.
Major container shipping companies such as Maersk had already announced skips or avoids to their calling plans at the port and they were progressing to change cargo handling locations for container ships. The new coral loading operations were expected to be halted. Alternative bunker ports were listed as Newark or Houston, and Cristobal in Panama for routes from Asia.
The container ship involved in the collision was a Singapore-flagged DALI (9,900 TEU) chartered by Maersk and operated by a ship management services company Synergy Marine.