Records look set to be broken in terms of shipping insurance payouts following Tuesday’s ship allision in Baltimore which saw the city’s largest bridge taken out and six people perish. To date, the sinking of the Costa Concordia cruiseship in 2012 and 2021’s Ever Given incident stand out as the largest casualty pay-outs this century, but early estimates are that the total costs from Tuesday’s extraordinary accident involving the 9,962 teu Dali containership could dwarf those infamous accidents. “Depending on the length of the blockage and the nature of the business interruption coverage for the Port of Baltimore, insured losses could total between $2bn and $4bn,” Marcos Alvarez, managing director for global insurance ratings at Morningstar DBRS, told Reuters yesterday. By comparison, the Costa Concordia, which sank off Italy 12 years ago with the loss of 32 lives, resulted in insurance claims of around $2bn. MSC has warned customers it will be several months before port operations return to normal Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the US’s National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), said late Wednesday that investigators had interviewed the captain, first mate, chief engineer and others of the Singapore-flagged vessel. The two pilots will be interviewed today. The agency also recovered a voyager data recorder, which showed power failed for just one minute and three seconds as it approached the structure, and that the lead pilot tried to swing the 300 m long vessel clear of a collision by dropping its port anchor to pivot it away. The disabled ship, managed by Synergy Group and on charter to Maersk, ran into a support pillar and caused much of the bridge to tumble into the Patapsco River at roughly 1:30 am on Tuesday. Just moments before, at 1:26 am, the pilot of the ship called for tugboat assistance, according to the voyage data recorder. At 1:27 am, the pilot made an order to drop the ship anchor. The US Coast Guard confirmed yesterday that the containership’s engines had undergone routine maintenance during its port stay while a Baltimore port worker told CNN that the Dali had “serious power outages” in the days before it lost propulsion Julie Mitchell, co-administrator of Container Royalty, which tracks the tonnage on containerships coming in and out of Baltimore, told CNN the ship was suffering from power outages for two days prior to its departure. “They had a severe electrical problem. It was total power failure, loss of engine power, everything,” Mitchell said, citing a number of reefers onboard which had been tripping circuit breakers. “The vessel went dead, no steering power and no electronics,” said an officer aboard the ship in comments reported by the Wall Street Journal earlier this week. “One of the engines coughed and then stopped. The smell of burned fuel was everywhere in the engine room and it was pitch black.” Pete Buttigieg, the US transportation secretary, on Wednesday, said it was “too soon to be certain” how long it would take to reopen the port where 10 merchant ships are now trapped, unable to leave until debris from the fallen bridge is removed. “Rebuilding will not be quick or easy or cheap, but we will get it done,” Buttigieg said. Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), the world’s largest containerline, has warned customers it will be “several months” before port operations return to normal and will omit Baltimore from its services “for the foreseeable future”. Vice-admiral Peter Gautier, the deputy commandant