ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland plans to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge in just over four years at an estimated cost between $1.7 billion and $1.9 billion, a state transportation official said Thursday.
The state plans to build a new span by fall of 2028, said David Broughton, a spokesperson for the Maryland Department of Transportation. He said the cost estimate is preliminary, and detailed engineering specifics have not been confirmed.
As salvage efforts continue, authorities also announced late Wednesday they had recovered the body of a fifth person who was missing after the bridge’s March 26 collapse, which shut down the port of Baltimore, one of the busiest ports in the country.
Six members of a roadwork crew plunged to their deaths when a container ship lost power and crashed into one of the bridge’s supporting columns. The Key Bridge Response Unified Command announced that the victim found Wednesday was identified as Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez, 49, of Glen Burnie, Maryland. All of the victims were Latino immigrants who came to the United States from Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.
“We continue to pray for Miguel Angel Luna Gonzalez, his family and all those who love him, acknowledging the anguish they have experienced since the Key Bridge collapsed," Gov. Wes Moore said in a statement Thursday. “We pray for comfort, we pray for healing, and we pray for peace in knowing that their loved one has finally come home.”
Salvage teams found one of the missing construction vehicles Wednesday and notified the Maryland State Police, officials said. State police investigators and Maryland Transportation Authority Police officers and the FBI responded to the scene and recovered the body inside a red truck. The state police underwater recovery team and crime scene unit also assisted.
Meanwhile, the broker for the bridge’s insurance policy confirmed Thursday that a $350 million payout will be made to the state of Maryland in what is expected to be the first of many payouts related to the collapse.
Chubb, the company that insured the bridge, is preparing to make the $350 million payment, according to WTW, the broker. Douglas Menelly, a spokesperson for WTW, on Thursday confirmed plans for the payout, which was first reported by The Wall Street Journal. Chubb did not immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
The Maryland Transportation Authority said Thursday that the state's treasurer filed a claim on the day of the bridge's collapse “against our $350 million property policy and put on notice our $150 million liability policy first tier carrier on behalf of MDTA.”
“We expect the full property policy to be paid very shortly,” the agency said in a news release.
Maryland transportation officials noted that the state's estimates for the cost to rebuild the bridge are in line with similar projects of this scale and complexity. Federal funding, insurance proceeds and other reimbursements will bring a variety of resources toward the rebuild and recovery effort, the officials said, and the state is pursuing other recovery options to minimize net cost to taxpayers and toll customers.
The Dali container ship has been stationary amid the wreckage since the collapse, but crews plan to refloat and remove the ship, allowing more maritime traffic to resume through Baltimore’s port. Officials expect to have it removed by May 10, according to a Port of Baltimore news release.
Salvage and demolition crews were still working around the clock to clear wreckage from the collapse site. They’re now focused primarily on freeing the Dali from a massive steel span that came crashing down on the ship’s bow.
That will allow the ship to be refloated and guided back into the Port of Baltimore. It will also allow most maritime traffic to resume through the busy East Coast port.
On Thursday morning, crews were preparing for a controlled demolition that will break down the largest remaining span and send it tumbling into the water. Then a massive hydraulic grabber will lift the resulting sections of steel onto barges.
The hydraulic grabber, which officials have called the largest in the country, was also in motion Thursday morning. Moving ever so slowly, the giant claw descended into the depths of the Patapsco River and emerged with a steel beam in its trusses. It was operating in tandem with the Chesapeake 1000, one of the largest cranes on the Eastern Seaboard.
Associated Press journalists Denise Lavoie in Richmond, Virginia, and Lea Skene in Baltimore, contributed to this report.
Workers remove wreckage of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Flowers are seen at a memorial site to honor the construction workers who lost their lives in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Roberto Marquez, an artist from Dallas, speaks during an interview with the Associated Press at a memorial site to honor the construction workers who lost their lives in the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Thursday, April 25, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Workers remove wreckage of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge, Thursday, April 25, 2024, in Baltimore. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (AP) — South Africa's election will determine how weary the country has become of the ruling African National Congress party that has been in power since the end of the apartheid system of white minority rule 30 years ago.
President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC are struggling to keep their parliamentary majority and opinion polls predict that the party will likely receive less than 50% of the national vote for the first time in the May 29 election.
That doesn't mean that the beleaguered ANC will be out of power in Africa's most advanced economy.
Even as the famous organization once led by Nelson Mandela has seen a decline in its popularity, no one has risen to a position to replace it. Instead, South Africans who have turned away from the ANC have gone looking for answers among an array of opposition parties.
So, the ANC is still expected to gain the largest share of votes. But without an outright majority, it would need to form a coalition to stay in government and keep Ramaphosa for a second and final term as president. For a key country on the African continent, that might bring new complications, given some recent coalitions at local level have been spectacular failures.
While most South Africans appear ready to register their disgruntlement with the ANC in a defining moment, a coalition government may not easily solve the country's big problems, which include the world’s highest levels of unemployment and inequality.
South Africans don't vote directly for their president, but rather decide the makeup of Parliament, which is called the National Assembly. They do that by choosing parties and those parties get seats in Parliament according to their share of the national vote. The 400-member National Assembly then elects the president, meaning whichever party has a majority chooses the head of state.
That has always been the ANC since the first all-race elections in 1994, but this time it may need to strike agreements with other parties to get the required 201 votes from lawmakers to reelect the 71-year-old Ramaphosa and form a government.
The election effectively starts on Friday and Saturday, when South African citizens living overseas vote in embassies and foreign missions. The main election will be held on May 29 across all nine provinces. It will decide the makeup of both the national and provincial legislatures.
Just over 27 million of the population of 62 million are registered to vote in what is only the country's seventh fully democratic national election since apartheid was dismantled.
There are 70 political parties registered for the vote, the most ever, and independent candidates will be allowed to stand for the first time.
The ANC's fate is the headline story: Ramaphosa is the party's leader and the face of its campaign. The main opposition is the centrist Democratic Alliance, or DA. It has entered into an agreement with some smaller parties in the hope that their combined vote might force the ANC out of government completely. Polls indicate they are some way off that mark.
The far-left Economic Freedom Fighters, or EFF, is the third biggest party and led by Julius Malema, a fiery former ANC youth leader.
The DA won around 20% in the last national election and the EFF 10% to the ANC's 57.5%. Neither opposition party appears to have significantly increased in popularity.
That's largely because of the dozens of other parties, many of them new, that have captured small shares. While 80% of South Africa’s population is Black, it is a multi-racial, multi-cultural society, with five defined racial groups, many ethnicities and 12 official languages. An equally diverse political picture is beginning to appear.
Of the new parties, uMkhonto weSizwe (which means Spear of the Nation) has gained the most attention because it is led by former South African President Jacob Zuma, who has turned his back on the ANC he once led in a bitter battle with Ramaphosa, the man who replaced him.
Unemployment and poverty stand out as the most pressing issues for the majority of people. While South Africa is regarded as Africa's most advanced country, its contradictions are stark. It also has an unemployment rate of 32% — the highest in the world — and more than half of South Africans are living in poverty, according to the World Bank.
That has driven most of the discontent as millions of the poor Black majority feel the ANC has not improved their lives sufficiently three decades after apartheid, which brutally oppressed Black people in favor of the white minority.
Other prominent election issues that are seen as pushing voters away from the ANC are the high rate of violent crime, multiple government corruption scandals over the years, the failure of some basic government services and a crisis within the state-owned electricity supplier that has led to nationwide blackouts at regular intervals to conserve power. The blackouts have eased ahead of the election but they angered people and further damaged a struggling economy.
This story has been corrected to show the ANC won 57.5% of the vote in the last national election, not 62%.
AP Africa news: https://apnews.com/hub/africa
FILE - Cars travel on a normally well-lit section of a freeway during a power outage in Johannesburg on Sept. 21, 2022. Power shortages, unemployment and poverty stand out as the most pressing issues as the country heads to a general election May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Denis Farrell, File)
File — Residents of the township of Soweto, Johannesburg, South Africa, queue for water Saturday, March 16, 2024. Unemployment and poverty stand out as the most pressing issues for the majority of people in the country as the country heads to a general election May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Jerome Delay, File)
File — A young girl carrying an empty water bottle through a flooded street caused by an overflowing water reservoir in Hammanskraal, Pretoria, South Africa, Friday, May 26, 2023 during a cholera outbreak. Unemployment and poverty stand out as the most pressing issues for the majority of people in the country as the country heads to a general election May 29, 2024. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe,File)
An array of election posters from various political parties are displayed on poles in Pretoria, South Africa, Thursday, May 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
An array of election posters from various political parties are displayed on poles in Pretoria, South Africa, Thursday, May 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
An array of election posters from various political parties are displayed on poles in Pretoria, South Africa, Thursday, May 16, 2024. (AP Photo/Themba Hadebe)
