Officials: Containers are being removed from ship that struck Baltimore bridge

April 8 (UPI) -- Officials in Maryland on Sunday said that they have begun to remove containers from a cargo ship that crashed late last month into the Francis Scott Key Bridge as they work to open the important shipping channel to maritime traffic.

The merchant vessel Dali crashed into the bridge on March 26, causing spans of the structure to not only collapse into the Patapsco River, but also on to the vessel.

Maritime traffic to and from the Port of Baltimore has essentially been suspended, and efforts are underway to remove debris in order to open the shipping route.

On Sunday, Key Bridge Response Unified Command announced in a statement that they have begun to remove containers from Dali to allow access to pieces of the bridge that lie across the vessel's bow.

They seek to remove the debris in order to refloat the ship and move it out of the channel. Doing so will permit further debris removal work from the river and recovery operations for those killed in the incident.

Six construction works were killed when the bridge collapsed. So far, the bodies of three construction workers have been recovered.

Unified Command described the removal of the containers from the vessel as "a critical step" required to eventually fully re-open the Fort McHenry Channel.

"The Unified Command is concurrently progressing on its main lines of effort to remove enough debris to open the channel to larger commercial traffic, refloat the M/V Dali and continue recovery efforts for missing loved ones," Coast Guard Capt. David O'Connell, federal on-scene coordinator for Unified Command, said in the statement.

"Every day we are working to achieve these goals safely and efficiently."

On Thursday, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Baltimore District, said they expect limited maritime traffic to be able to move through the Port of Baltimore by the end of the month, with a full re-opening of the Fort McHenry Channel to occur by June.

Unified Command said a total of 32 ships have be able to transit through the area since the crash via the creation of temporary, alternate channels.

According to the USCE Baltimore, the steel and concrete from the bridge wreckage weighs about 50,000 tons, the equivalent of more than 3,800 fully loaded dump trucks.