The body of the sixth and final victim who died after a container ship struck a bridge in the US city of Baltimore has been recovered.
The Francis Scott Key Bridge, a major transit route into the busy port of Baltimore, collapsed on March 26 when the Dali container ship lost power and collided with a support column, killing six roadway construction workers.
Authorities identified the victim as 37-year-old Jose Mynor Lopez, a construction worker from Baltimore, Maryland, who had been working on the bridge when it collapsed.
"Today, Jose Mynor Lopez, the sixth and final missing victim, was recovered," Baltimore Mayor Brandon M Scott said on X, formerly Twitter.
The Unified Command, a joint task force consisting of police, the Coast Guard and government agencies responding to the disaster, said Lopez's family members had been notified.
Maryland State Police said the recovery of the body was a "milestone" in recovery efforts.
Work to fully reopen the shipping channel would continue "as we close this chapter in this (recovery) effort," Scott said.
The 300-meter Dali ship had issued a Mayday call moments before the collision giving police time to stop traffic to the bridge, likely saving lives.
But an eight-man construction crew repairing potholes on the bridge could not be reached in time and plummeted with the tons of concrete and twisted steel into the Patapsco River.
Two workers were rescued alive, one briefly hospitalized and the other uninjured.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Transportation Safety Board have opened criminal investigations into the disaster.
© Agence France-Presse
