Cargo ship strikes bridge between New Jersey and Philadelphia, causing traffic backup

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A cargo ship struck a bridge across the Delaware River on Thursday, disrupting traffic between Palmyra, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, according to a Pennsylvania lawmaker.

The collision left the 3,659-foot-long (1,115-meter-long) Tacony-Palmyra Bridge unable to close, causing a major backup on the Philadelphia side, state Rep. Ed Neilson said in a news release. No injuries have been reported, he said.

The U.S. Coast Guard said the cargo vessel is currently moored at a Kinder Morgan facility in Bristol, Pennsylvania, where an inspection team is on site. The Coast Guard identified the vessel as the 591-foot (180-meter) Strategic Alliance, which was built in 2013 and sails under the flag of Singapore.

The drawbridge was open for ships to pass through at the time of the collision around 1:15 p.m., according to the Coast Guard. It remained open afterward because another vessel needed to pass through, and has since come back down.

The steel bridge carries vehicles along Route 73 between Palmyra and the Tacony neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia. It has three lanes of vehicular traffic, two into Philadelphia and one into New Jersey. Estimates from 2025 show the bridge can carry as many as 76,200 vehicles each day.

No one answered the phone Thursday afternoon at the Burlington County (New Jersey) Bridge Commission, which owns, operates and maintains the bridge. A recorded message said the bridge is closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic until further notice, and that an update would be provided in time for evening rush hour.

Opened in 1929, the Tacony-Palmyra toll bridge was found to be in “fair” condition, according to the Federal Highway Administration’s 2026 National Bridge Inventory data released this fall.

Inspectors rated the deck of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge as in good condition, the substructure as in fair condition and the superstructure — the component that absorbs the live traffic load — as fair.

Associated Press journalists Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City, Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed.

A view of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge after a cargo ship struck the bridge, in Philadelphia, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

A view of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge after a cargo ship struck the bridge, in Philadelphia, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

A view of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge after a cargo ship struck the bridge, in Philadelphia, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

A view of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge after a cargo ship struck the bridge, in Philadelphia, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

A view of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge after a cargo ship struck the bridge, in Philadelphia, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

A view of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge after a cargo ship struck the bridge, in Philadelphia, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

A view of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge after a cargo ship struck the bridge, in Philadelphia, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Chris Szagola)

NEW YORK (AP) — Before the screams started, Dervie Mapp heard loud popping noises outside her Brooklyn apartment. She bolted out of bed to the kitchen window and watched as a neighboring building came crashing down, raining three stories of bricks and twisted metal.

Stunned survivors cried out amid thick dust and piles of rubble that moments earlier had been people’s homes.

“I saw the whole thing come down,” Mapp, a 67-year-old retiree, told The Associated Press on Thursday. “People were running up out of the pit, screaming and hollering. I couldn’t believe it — I froze.”

The deadly collapse that occurred without warning Wednesday afternoon took down a building that housed a store selling medical uniforms on the ground level and four apartments on the floors above.

Eight people perished, including two children who were Colombian nationals, according to the Colombian consulate in New York. The New York City Police Department identified the children as Nicole Daniela Salvada Rodriguez, 9; and Kevin Santiago Reyes Gonzalez, 10.

Two men from Ecuador, José Luis Caguana Cosquillo, 26, and Gabriel Siguencia, 22, were among the deceased, according to police and the Ecuadorian consulate in New York. Also dead were Juan Daniel Salvada Guzman, 31; Ndiaye Mamadou, 31; Barry Mamadou, 23; and Edgar Sapon, 26, police said. Officials said 18 others suffered injuries.

New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani on Thursday described the victims as “parents and children, young families building their lives in our city and immigrants from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador, Trinidad and beyond.”

Among those hurt were four firefighters assisting with rescue efforts, which continued Thursday as crews searched for survivors through heaps of debris that included mattresses, a broken sink and a refrigerator with its door missing and food jumbled inside. Vinyl records, shoes and other personal belongings littered the rubble.

James Williams said he heard loud banging at the construction site all day Wednesday as he worked at a deli across the street. He said he noticed bricks falling from a building next to the site. Then the whole building fell down.

The collapse ripped away a wall shared with an adjacent building, which remained standing with the interiors of its apartments exposed — closets crammed with clothing, a stuffed bear sitting atop a pile of shoes and laundry heaped on a pink bedspread.

Security camera video from the building showed an interior stairway shaking as the wall beside it fell in a loud crash and a cloud of dust. The camera later recorded a firefighter helping a resident descend the same stairs above a yawning abyss of debris.

“Nice and easy,” the firefighter said as the person clutched both his hand and the railing.

Despite the chaos, construction workers who had barely escaped with their lives turned around and began clawing through the wreckage to free survivors, said Mamdani. He said their swift actions saved lives.

The mayor said Thursday that two construction workers were among the dead.

They included Caguana Cosquillo, a 26-year-old immigrant from Ecuador who had a young child and pregnant wife, his brother, Carlos Caguana, told WNBC-TV.

“He was the sole provider for the family,” Caguana said, adding that his brother's wife was devastated.

“She’s completely overwhelmed,” he said, “and can’t even find the words to speak.”

Rico reported from Atlanta. AP journalists Russ Bynum in Savannah, Georgia; Hannah Fingerhut in Des Moines, Iowa; Scott Bauer in Madison, Wisconsin; Laura Turbay in Little Rock, Arkansas; and Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City contributed.

A police official and a K-9 dog inspect the site of a building that collapsed the previous day in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

New York City Department of Buildings employees stand on a rooftop during their investigation of a building that collapsed the previous day in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Thursday, Nov. 12, 2026. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)