Mexican president Andrés Manuel López Obradorsaid at a news conference the bridge collapse showed how migrant workers in the US often take risky jobs.
López Obrador confirmed that two of the missing workers were from Mexican. A third was rescued and is now safe, he said. He added:
This demonstrates that migrants go out and do risky jobs at midnight, and for this reason they do not deserve to be treated as they are by certain insensitive, irresponsible politicians in the United States.
Two Mexican workers missing after bridge collapse, says Mexico's president
Mexico’s president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, has confirmed that three Mexican nationals were among the workers on the Francis Scott Key Bridge when it collapsed.
Two of the Mexican workers are missing. The third was injured and rescued, he said.
López Obrador, speaking at a press conference today, said he would not reveal the names of the workers because their families had asked authorities to handle that information with caution.
Far-right commentators have declared Tuesday’s dramatic collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge a “black swan event”, a niche phrase that has recently captured the imaginations of “deep state” conspiracy theorists.
“Nothing is safe,” wrote manosphere influencer Andrew Tate on X, about six hours after a container ship collided with the bridge. “Black Swan Event imminent.”
“This is a BLACK SWAN event,” asserted Gen Mike Flynn, Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, on X. Others, including Benny Johnson, Laura Loomer and some verified QAnon-affiliated accounts, also latched on to the “black swan event” language, many claiming that the collapse was terrorism related.
“Looks deliberate to me. A cyber-attack is probable. WW3 has already started,” wrote Infowars’ Alex Jones on X.
Officials do not believe the said that the crash was terrorism-related or intentional; some theorized that the ship “lost propulsion”, causing it to veer off course.
The phrase “black swan event” was popularized in 2001 by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a Lebanese American statistician and essayist, to describe unforeseen happenings in the financial world with cascading consequences, such as the 2000 dot-com crash. He later extended his metaphor in the context of historical or significant national security events.
In recent months, conspiracy theorists have hijacked the concept and folded it into deep state narratives, which posit that a clandestine network of powerful individuals are secretly running the US government.
Maryland lawmakers are drafting emergency legislation to help workers affected by the bridge collapse.
Maryland state senator Bill Ferguson,in a social media post, said he is proposing income replacement for the thousands of workers who “rely on daily operations at Port of Baltimore to put food on the table”. He added:
The human cost of lives lost yesterday is overwhelming and tragic. The economic and stability loss to the thousands impacted in the days ahead cannot be understated.
Maryland governor Wes Moore said that the economic consequences of the bridge collapse “cannot be overstated and not just for the state of Maryland.”
Moore told Today:
We’re talking about what this means for the entire country. We’re talking about a port that brings on more cars more light trucks, more agricultural equipment than any other port in this country. So this is not just going to impact Maryland. We’re talking about farmers in Kentucky. We’re talking about auto dealers in Michigan.
The governor of Maryland, Wes Moore, said he was able to spend time with the family members of the construction workers who were on the bridge at the time of the collapse.
Speaking to Today, Moore said he made a commitment to those families that “we would put every possible resource” towards a search and rescue mission, adding:
Now that we’ve transitioned to a recovery mission, I’m going to make sure that we’re going to put every possible resource to bring a sense of closure to these families.
He also paid tribute to the first responders who saved “countless” lives by getting cars off the bridge, adding that he was “incredibly thankful” for their work.
The city of Baltimore remains in a state of emergency as rescue efforts continue for the six missing construction workers, Baltimore mayor Brandon Scott said.
Speaking to CNN, Scott said:
There’s still a state of emergency. We will have that for the foreseeable future. This is an unthinkable tragedy that impacts our city and our community and our state in so many different and ways.
He acknowledged the work ahead to reopen the port of Baltimore, but said his concentration remains on the recovery efforts.
We’re all, right now, still focused on recovery. That’s what we’re talking about today – recovering those who we lost.