The Francis Scott Key Bridge in the US city of Baltimore collapsed after a ship collided with it, the Maryland Transportation Authority said early Tuesday.

“I-695 Key Bridge collapse due to ship strike,” the MTA posted on social media platform X, referring to the interstate highway. It urged drivers to avoid the route over the Patapsco River, which it called an “active scene”.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland which crosses the Patapsco River has reportedly Collapsed within the last few minutes after being Struck by a Large Container Ship; a Mass Casualty Incident has been Declared with over a Dozen Cars and many Individuals said to… pic.twitter.com/SsPMU8Mjph

— OSINTdefender (@sentdefender) March 26, 2024

Earlier, the MTA had said that the interstate lanes in both directions were closed due to an “incident” on the bridge and that traffic was being redirected.

A police spokesperson from the Baltimore Police Department told NBC News that people were possibly in the river.

“I can confirm at 1:35 am, Baltimore City police were notified of a partial bridge collapse, with workers possibly in the water, at the Francis Scott Key Bridge,” Detective Niki Fennoy said in a statement.

Ship monitoring website MarineTraffic showed a Singapore-flagged container ship called the Dali stopped under the bridge early Tuesday.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Five Chinese nationals died in a northwest Pakistan convoy explosion by a suicide bomber. Balochistan Liberation Army attacked PNS Siddique airbase, causing one soldier’s death. Pakistani forces killed five assailants and four terrorists in separate incidents.

A bench of Justices Vivek Kumar Birla and Donadi Ramesh noted the exceptional situation in the case at hand where the son of the deceased government employee was alive, but he had more than 75% disability and was unable to work