The United States Department of Justice on Tuesday filed a criminal case against two firms based in Chennai and Singapore, and an Indian citizen, in connection with six deaths caused by a cargo ship colliding with a bridge in Baltimore in March 2024.
The six men were working to repair the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it was hit by the vessel, Dali, and the structure collapsed into the Patapsco River.
The Singapore-flagged ship was on its way to Colombo from Baltimore. The entire 22-member crew of the vessel was Indian. None of them were hurt.
The companies, Synergy Marine of Singapore and Synergy Maritime of Chennai, and the vessel’s technical superintendant Radhakrishnan Karthik Nair have been charged with conspiracy, wilfully failing to immediately inform the US Coast Guard of a known hazardous condition, obstructing the proceedings of an agency and providing false statements.
Nair worked for both firms as the vessel's technical superintendent.
The two companies and the Indian citizen were also charged for polluting the river with the cargo the ship was carrying.
The indictment alleges that the accident caused an economic loss of at least $5 billion.
The ship lost power twice within four minutes as it navigated out of the Baltimore port, causing it to crash into the bridge, according to the indictment.
The document said that the defendants had allegedly altered the vessel and relied on a flushing pump to supply fuel to two of the Dali’s four generators.
“However, the flushing pump was not designed to automatically restart following a blackout, and Dali’s generators could not operate without a fuel supply, so the ship ultimately experienced a second blackout,” the indictment alleged.
If the ship had used proper fuel supply pumps, it would have regained power in time to safely navigate under the bridge, it added.
Joe Biden, the US president at the time, had commended the ship’s crew for their prompt mayday call.
The personnel had alerted the Maryland Department of Transportation that they had lost control of their vessel, Biden had said. “As a result, local authorities were able to close the bridge to traffic before the bridge was struck, which undoubtedly saved lives,” he added.
Written by Nachiket Deuskar. Edited by Sneha.
|
