The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, according to Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, shows that “migrants go out and do risky jobs at midnight” and do not deserve the treatment they receive from “certain insensitive, irresponsible politicians in the United States.”
López Obrador’s remark came as Maryland State Police identified one of the two victims recovered from the Patapsco River on Wednesday as 35-year-old Alejandro Hernández Fuentes, a Mexican native.
“Based on the conditions, we’re now moving from a recovery mode to a salvage operation because of the superstructure surrounding what we believe are the vehicles, as well as the amount of concrete and debris; divers are no longer able to safely navigate or operate in the areas around this wreckage,” Col. Roland L. Butler Jr., superintendent of Maryland State Police, said during a press conference Wednesday night.
Butler identified the other victim, a 26-year-old Guatemalan named Dorlian Castillo Cabrera, from the water. Divers found two bodies trapped inside a red pickup truck, submerged in approximately 25 feet of water in the center span of the bridge.
Following Tuesday’s accident, in which the cargo ship Dali collided with one of the bridge’s supports in the early morning hours, causing the span to collapse, four more construction workers are believed to be dead. They also come from Guatemala and El Salvador.
The Associated Press identifies another victim as 38-year-old Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval is the youngest of eight siblings from Azacualpa, a rural mountainous district in northeastern Honduras.
Sandoval fled Honduras for the United States 18 years ago, entering illegally before settling in Maryland and working any job he could find, including construction and brush clearing, according to the news agency. According to his brother, Martín Suazo Sandoval, he launched a package delivery business in the Baltimore-Washington area.
“He was the fundamental pillar, the bastion, so that other members of the family could also travel there and later get visas and everything,” according to the Associated Press. “He was really the driving force so that most of the family could travel.”
Maynor has a wife and two children, aged 17 and five, according to his brother. The coronavirus pandemic drove Maynor to look for work elsewhere, and he joined Brawner Builders, the business that was maintaining the bridge when it collapsed.
According to Martín Suazo Sandoval, Maynor never expressed fear of his work, despite working at heights on bridges. “He always told us that you had to triple your effort to get ahead.” He said it didn’t matter what time or where the job was; you had to go where the work was.
According to his brother, the Honduran was working on obtaining legal status and intended to return to his native country this year to finish the process.
