By Hannah Nightingale – The Postmillennial
Flames were seen erupting from a ship in Baltimore Harbor on Monday evening. Per WMAR 2, the Baltimore County Fire Department confirmed an explosion occurred on a coal tanker near the site of the Francis Scott Key Bridge that collapsed in 2024.
The Coast Guard is reportedly en route to inspect the scene. Spokesperson for Baltimore City fire, John Marsh, said that no injuries on the ship have been reported, per WBAL, and the fire is contained.
Mike Singer, a member of the Baltimore and Chesapeake Bay Shipwatchers group, told the outlet that the ship, which was full of coal, had just left the CSX Coal Dock. He said the explosion occurred at around 6:28 pm.
Ships of that size typically have a crew of up to 30 people. Coal is a main export of the area and was disrupted after the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in 2024. It rebounded about two months after that collapse. The port typically loads over 2 million short tons of coal for export each month. Coal exports in Baltimore Harbor hit a five-year high in 2023, with 28 million short tons in exports.
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge across the Patapsco River in March 2024 was preceded by a container ship, the Dali, crashing into one of its piers after it lost power. Six maintenance workers who had been on the span were killed in the collapse, while two others were rescued from the water.
It was 11 weeks before the Port of Baltimore was reopened. The crash and subsequent collapse was called a “global crisis” by Maryland Governor Wes Moore and more than 8,000 jobs were affected by the closure and collapse. The cost was estimated to be some $15 million per day. The bridge has not yet been replaced, though officials in Maryland have planned to do so by 2028. The cost of that replacement is anticipated to be in the billions.
A report released by the National Traffic Safety Bureau around a year after the bridge was destroyed revealed that if officials with the Maryland Department of Transportation had conducted a risk assessment on the bridge prior to the collapse, officials would have discovered that the bridge had a heightened risk for such a collapse.
The Singaporean owners and operators of the Dali, Grace Ocean Private Limited and Synergy Marine Private Limited, agreed in October 2024 to pay over $100 million in a settlement with the Department of Justice.