Baltimore bridge collapse victims list: What we know about the missing construction workers, 2 recovered

BALTIMORE, Md. — The bodies of two construction workers have been recovered while four others remain missing and are presumed dead after a cargo ship struck Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge, sending the workers into the water.

Eight workers were fixing potholes on the span when the ship hit the bridge around 1:30 a.m. Tuesday. The workers plunged into the frigid water, and two were rescued, officials said.

Search and rescue efforts for the workers were suspended Tuesday evening, with operations shifting to a recovery phase, officials said.

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“Based on the length of time that we’ve gone in the search, the extensive search efforts that we put into it, the water temperature — at this point, we do not believe that we’re going to find any of these individuals still alive,” Rear Adm. Shannon Gilreath told reporters Tuesday evening.

The bodies of two of the workers were recovered Wednesday morning, police said. They were found by divers trapped in a red pickup truck that was submerged in approximately 25 feet of water near the middle span of the bridge, Maryland State Police said.

The victims were identified by police as Alejandro Hernandez Fuentes, 35, a native of Mexico who lived in Baltimore, and Dorlian Ronial Castillo Cabrera, 26, a native of Guatemala who lived in Dundalk.

Two of the missing workers were also from Guatemala and Mexico, according to their respective foreign ministries. Their names were not released. The missing worker from Guatemala was a 35-year-old from Camotán, Chiquimula, the country’s foreign ministry said.

Miguel Luna

Among the missing is construction worker Miguel Luna, a native of El Salvador, according to Court Appointed Special Advocates, a group that works with immigrants.

Luna “is a husband, a father of three, and has called Maryland his home for over 19 years,” the organization said in a press release.

He “left at 6:30 p.m. Monday evening for work and since, has not come home,” the organization said.

Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval

Another missing victim was identified as 38-year-old Maynor Yassir Suazo Sandoval, a father of two who migrated from Honduras over 17 years ago, according to Gustavo Torres, the executive director of CASA, an immigration and Latino advocacy-and-assistance organization.

He was the youngest of eight siblings from Azacualpa, a rural mountainous area in northwestern Honduras along the border with Guatemala.

“He was the baby for all of us, the youngest. He was someone who was always happy, was always thinking about the future. He was a visionary,” Carlos Suazo Sandoval, one of Maynor’s brothers told The Associated Press by phone Wednesday from Dundalk, Maryland, near the site of the bridge collapse.

He dreamed of starting a small business and brought joy and humor to his family, Torres told reporters on Wednesday.

Maynor entered the United States illegally and settled in Maryland. At first, he did any work he could find, including construction and clearing brush. Eventually, he started a package delivery business in the Baltimore-Washington area, Martín Suazo Sandoval said.

Other siblings and relatives followed him north.

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“He was the fundamental pillar, the bastion so that other members of the family could also travel there and later get visas and everything,” Martín Suazo Sandoval said. “He was really the driving force so that most of the family could travel.”

Maynor has a wife and two children ages 17 and 5, he said.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced Maynor to find other work, and he joined Brawner Builders, the company that was performing maintenance on the bridge when it collapsed.

Even though Maynor had not been able to return to Honduras, he had financially supported various nongovernmental social organizations in town, as well as the youth soccer league, his brother said. The area depends largely upon agriculture – coffee, cattle, sugarcane – he said.

Maynor’s employer broke the news of his disappearance to his family, leaving them devastated, especially his mother, who still lives in Azacualpa, Martín Suazo Sandoval said.

“These are difficult moments, and the only thing we can do is keep the faith,” he said, noting that his younger brother knew how to swim and could have ended up anywhere. If the worst outcome is confirmed, he said the family would work to return his body to Honduras.

Federal and state investigators have said the crash appears to have been an accident.

ABC News and The Associated Press contributed to this report.