This is clearly a major incident developing, and has prompted a major response from the emergency services.
It was at about 1:30am local time that a large container ship hit this bridge and then really, the pictures tell the story – the bridge completely collapsed into the river below.
We understand the container ship is actually flagged in Singapore. Often container ships have flags from different countries – it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re from that country, but it’s from where they are overseen.
This has been declared as a mass casualty incident – that really gives us a sense of the seriousness of the situation.
Authorities don’t declare an incident to be a mass casualty event unless it is extremely serious.
What went wrong?
What caused this incident is still unclear, but BBC Verify has been looking at video of the collision and the Dali’s travel history on ship tracking platform MarineTraffic.
The container ship set off from Baltimore’s Seagirt Marine Terminal at around 00:24 local time (04:24 GMT) on 26 March.
Its speed steadily increased and it maintained a straight route south east along the Patapsco River.
Then at 01:25 MarineTraffic data shows that the ship suddenly diverted from its straight course and began to slow down.
Around this time, video shows that all lights on the exterior of the ship suddenly turned off and smoke began emanating smoke from the ship’s funnel.
The Dali then hit a portion of the bridge at 01:28, causing it to collapse.
