Pablo PardoWashington Correspondent
Washington Correspondent
Updated Sunday, March 31, 2024-01:26
Dali accident, the gigantic ship that brought down the Baltimore bridge, already crashed into a dock in Antwerp
Tragedy Police had only 90 seconds to stop traffic on the Baltimore bridge before it collapsed
Two minutes and 46 seconds. That was the time that elapsed from the time the
Baltimore
port pilot called port authorities informing them that the container ship Dali had lost power until the two checkpoints guarding the two entrances to the Francis Scott Key Bridge closed it to road traffic. . It was an incredibly fast action in which the pilot's reflexes probably saved many lives, since he used his mobile phone since the entire
electrical installation of the ship had stopped working
, and that means that the radios were not operational either.
The speed of the pilot, whose name has not been disclosed, prevented a greater tragedy. The two dead and four missing - who are also presumed deceased - could have been many more if the bridge had remained open to traffic. Had the accident occurred during the day, the fatalities would have been in the hundreds or thousands.
The speed in the response to the incident will not now avoid a long and cumbersome process for the
Dali
to sail again, the bridge to be built again and the insurers to cover the expenses. Removing the bridge alone will require
seven giant floating cranes
, 10 tugboats, nine barges, eight boats, and five coast guard vessels. The legal issue will be even more complex, which will surely last for years, since US legislation limits its payments in these incidents and, in any case, a responsible person or entity must first be identified.
At a structural level, the accident has shown that the United States is the leading world power but has
infrastructure typical of a developing country
. Although the
Francis Scott Key Bridge
had turned 37 precisely three days before the
Dali
brought it down, it lacked what experts consider
basic protection measures
in a construction that crosses an area of enormous maritime traffic. This lack of preparation is normal on many bridges in the United States, and is a reflection of the appalling state of public works in that country.
In 2021, the United States spent 0.5% of its GDP on infrastructure. That means
89% less than China
, or between half and a third than other countries with a similar degree of development, such as Germany, France, the United Kingdom and South Korea. Investing more in that chapter was one of
Obama
's priorities
, but his plans never went beyond being a set of good words.
Donald Trump
did the same, but the most he achieved was to create a series of conferences in Washington called
Infrastructure Week
that ended up becoming a joke. Only
Joe Biden
has achieved three historic packages for that chapter, but their effects will take decades to be noticed. This is how, for example, the Key Bridge - one of Washington's landmark bridges over the Potomac River - was closed to traffic in 2016 because it was not safe for road traffic.
Infrastructures are also politicized. With Republicans opposing them because they consider them "wasteful", especially when they promote public transportation, which for some members of that party is
a "collectivist" and "socialist" practice
. Thus, when
Chris Christie
became governor of New Jersey,. He canceled the construction of a bridge to link the state with the neighboring island of Manhattan, in New York, which has the same number of bridges and tunnels connecting it with the outside world for 53 years.
And, apart from the reconstruction of the bridge, another element has come into action: conspiracy theories. A video in which it is stated that the
Dali
- named in homage to
Salvador Dalí
- changes course before colliding with the bridge, for example, has gone viral on X (the old Twitter), always repeating exactly the same phrase . The video, paradoxically, was created by Indian military analyst
Abhijit Iyer-Mitra
and later taken up by accounts in that country and around the world.
Iyer-Mitra backtracked on his statement two hours after posting his first
tweet
. But it was too late.
Bots
joined
the
conspiracy theorists
. According to the
online
anti-disinformation
software
Cyabra, cited by US military analyst
Ryan McBeth
, 20% of the reproductions of that theory came from accounts that used
Artificial Intelligence
(AI).
Others have been less subtle. That is the case of the messages on social networks that blame the accident... on
racial minorities
. They do not say it in those words, but rather they attribute the catastrophe to the DEI, which stands for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, the new acronym used by American companies and Administrations to admit racial minorities into them.
This has even been expressed by a member of Congress from the state of Utah,
Phil Lyman
, who has cleverly selected as the target of his criticism the only black woman on the board of directors of the port of Baltimore,
Karentha Barber
.
As Lyman learns that the
Dali
took its name from a Spanish painter - a country that many Americans place somewhere vaguely between Mexico and Argentina - and that its owner is from Singapore - that is, most likely Chinese and, if not , Indian-, will not have the slightest doubt that the fault of the catastrophe was not an electrical failure, but a racial one.