Trapped vessels start to move out of Baltimore following bridge disaster

The U.S. state of Maryland has opened a temporary channel on the northbound side of the collapsed Baltimore bridge, allowing limited tug and barge traffic around the container ship stuck at the disaster site, Governor Wes Moore said on Monday.

"It will help us to get more vessels in the water around the site of the collapse," Moore told a news conference.

The Port of Baltimore's shipping channel has been blocked since a fully loaded container ship lost power and collided with a support column on the Francis Scott Key Bridge last Tuesday, killing six road workers and causing the highway bridge which loops around Baltimore to fall into the Patapsco River.

The temporary channel opened on Monday has a controlling depth of 11 feet (3.35 meters), freeing some commercial tugs and barges that had been trapped in the harbor, U.S. Coast Guard Rear Admiral Shannon Gilreath told the news conference.

Gilreath said he did not know if those vessels carried goods or were empty and seeking to reload elsewhere.