Explosive charges are detonated to bring down sections of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge resting on the container ship Dali on Monday in Baltimore.

Mark Schiefelbein/AP

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Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Explosive charges are detonated to bring down sections of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge resting on the container ship Dali on Monday in Baltimore.

Mark Schiefelbein/AP

BALTIMORE — Crews set off a chain of carefully placed explosives Monday to break down the largest remaining span of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, and with a boom and a splash, the mangled steel trusses came crashing down into the river below.

The explosives flashed orange and let off plumes of black smoke upon detonation. The longest trusses toppled away from the grounded Dali container ship and slid off its bow, sending a wall of water splashing back toward the ship.

It marked a major step in freeing the Dali, which has been stuck among the wreckage since it lost power and crashed into one of the bridge’s support columns shortly after leaving Baltimore on March 26.

The collapse killed six construction workers and halted most maritime traffic through Baltimore’s busy port. The controlled demolition will allow the Dali to be refloated and restore traffic through the port, which will provide relief for thousands of longshoremen, truckers and small business owners who have seen their jobs impacted by the closure.

Officials said the detonation went as planned. They said the next step in the dynamic cleanup process is to assess the few remaining trusses on the Dali’s bow and make sure none of the underwater wreckage is preventing the ship from being refloated and moved.

“It’s a lot like peeling back an onion,” said Lt. Gen. Scott Spellmon of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Officials expect to refloat the ship within the next few days. Then three or four tugboats will guide it to a nearby terminal at the port. It will likely remain there for a several weeks and undergo temporary repairs before being moved to a shipyard for more substantial repairs.

“This was a very big milestone for our progression forward,” Col. Estee Pinchasin, Baltimore District Commander for the Army Corps of Engineers, said in the immediate aftermath of the demolition. She said crews don’t anticipate having to use any more explosives.

The Dali’s crew remained on board the ship during the detonation, and no injuries or problems were reported, said Capt. David O’Connell, commander of the Port of Baltimore.

The crew members haven’t been allowed to leave the grounded vessel since the disaster. Officials said they’ve been busy maintaining the ship and assisting investigators. Of the crew members, 20 are from India and one is Sri Lankan.

Explosive charges are detonated to bring down sections of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge resting on the container ship Dali on Monday in Baltimore.

Mark Schiefelbein/AP

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Mark Schiefelbein/AP

Explosive charges are detonated to bring down sections of the collapsed Francis Scott Key Bridge resting on the container ship Dali on Monday in Baltimore.

Mark Schiefelbein/AP

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Engineers spent weeks preparing to use explosives to break down the span, which was an estimated 500 feet (152 meters) long and weighs up to 600 tons (544 metric tons). The demolition was postponed Sunday because of thunderstorms.

“This is a best practice,” Gov. Wes Moore said at a news conference Monday, noting that there have been no injuries during the cleanup to date. “Safety in this operation is our top priority.”

Fire teams were stationed in the area during the explosion in case of any problematic flying sparks, officials said.

In a videographic released this week, authorities said engineers were using precision cuts to control how the trusses break down. They said the method allows for “surgical precision” and is one of the safest and most efficient ways to remove steel under a high level of tension. Hydraulic grabbers will now lift the broken sections of steel onto barges.

The National Transportation Safety Board and the FBI are conducting investigations into the bridge collapse. Officials have said the safety board investigation will focus on the ship’s electrical system.

Danish shipping giant Maersk had chartered the Dali for a planned trip from Baltimore to Sri Lanka, but the ship didn’t get far. Its crew sent a mayday call saying they had lost power and had no control of the steering system. Minutes later, the ship rammed into the bridge.

State and federal officials have commended the salvage crews and other members of the cleanup operation who helped recover the remains of the six construction workers. The last body was recovered from the underwater wreckage last week. All of the victims were Latino immigrants who came to the U.S. for job opportunities. They were filling potholes on an overnight shift when the bridge was destroyed.

Officials said the operation remains on track to reopen the port’s 50-foot (15-meter) deep draft channel by the end of May. Until then, crews have established a temporary channel that’s slightly shallower. Officials said 365 commercial vessels have passed through the port in recent weeks. The port normally processes more cars and farm equipment than any other in the country.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Baltimore native whose father and brother served as mayor decades ago, compared the Key Bridge disaster to the overnight bombardment of Baltimore’s Fort McHenry, which long ago inspired Francis Scott Key to write “The Star-Spangled Banner” during the War of 1812. She said both are a testament to Maryland’s resilience.

Pelosi, a Democrat who represents California’s 11th district, attended Monday’s news conference with two of her relatives. She praised the collective response to the tragedy as various government agencies have come together, working quickly without sacrificing safety.

“Proof through the night that our flag was still there,” she said. “That’s Baltimore strong.”

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In January, journalists, corporate consultants and restructuring specialists filled up a Hong Kong courtroom in a rare scene to attend Evergrande’s winding-up hearing where judge Linda Chan declared “enough is enough” and handed down a liquidation order.

The landmark case involving China’s once-biggest property developer by sales with more than $300bn in liabilities has put the territory’s legal framework for resolving debt problems back in the spotlight. More than 20 Chinese developers have been slapped with winding-up petitions in Hong Kong since China’s real estate crisis began in 2021, with at least five being ordered to be wound up by a Hong Kong judge.

This is not a great result for any of the parties involved. Often described as a “nuclear option” and a lose-lose scenario by lawyers, these winding-up court proceedings leave creditors with little to no return. And proceedings can drag out for many months.

Lawyers and restructuring specialists say Hong Kong’s legal framework for other debt restructuring options is lacking compared with financial jurisdictions such as London, New York and Singapore.

A restructuring bill to remedy this has been in discussion for more than 20 years in the Asian financial hub but other legislative priorities have taken precedence amid a lack of consensus on what it should contain. The last push to introduce one came in 2020 when a draft legislative proposal was made as the Covid-19 pandemic struck.

The Hong Kong government carried out a consultation but later put the plan again on hold. Although it said it would continue to consult stakeholders to refine the legislative proposals, there does not appear to be a timeframe for that.

Lawyers said there was a pressing need to raise the proposal back up the agenda, particularly as offshore creditors increasingly use Hong Kong courts to force distressed Chinese developers into speeding up their restructuring plans.

Chinese developers have defaulted on a massive $115bn of $175bn in outstanding offshore dollar bonds since 2021, according to Bloomberg data. And property developer Shimao last month became one of the latest to face a winding-up petition, unusually from a Chinese state-backed bank. Country Garden, which defaulted in October, received a winding-up petition in February involving more than $200mn worth of debt.

A key element of a restructuring bill is that after the appointment of a supervisor for a debt restructuring, a statutory moratorium would be imposed to halt parties from rushing off to court and asking for a winding up.

Under the current legal system in Hong Kong, creditors are free to go after distressed companies by filing wind-up petitions before a scheme of arrangement for a restructuring is agreed and then approved by a court, according to Jamie Stranger, a Hong Kong-based partner at Stephenson Harwood.

Law firm Herbert Smith Freehills says this gives “dissenting creditors significant leverage to hold the company and other consenting creditors to ransom and otherwise encourages ‘rogue’ behaviour by them, which in turn jeopardises the restructuring efforts”. It adds: “This often leads to a worse outcome for all interested parties where there is a genuine prospect that the restructured business would be able to trade out of its difficulties.”

One problem is to what extent would a restructuring bill cover mainland Chinese assets. Under the existing winding-up process in Hong Kong, it is very unlikely for offshore creditors to get back any onshore mainland assets. This is despite a “mutual recognition agreement” on insolvency and restructuring rolled out in 2021 that applies in some parts of mainland China. Offshore creditors remain typically subordinated to onshore stakeholders, lawyers say.

A bill “would need to interface with the mainland laws and provide some ability for a provisional supervisor to be recognised and assisted in the mainland”, Jonathan Leitch, a Hong Kong-based partner at Hogan Lovells, told me. Otherwise, the roles of a Hong Kong-based provisional supervisor in most cases “would be severely hampered”.

Lance Jiang, a partner in restructuring and insolvency at law firm Ashurst, says: “Most practitioners would like to have the new restructuring bill, because it definitely mitigates the gap between Hong Kong and other international centres and would give the companies and also the creditors side with more options to do consensual restructuring.”

“It’s Hong Kong, you know, the legislative council can do it quickly, efficiently,” says Jiang, adding that this would benefit everyone in the market.

thomas.chan@ft.com

Pasadena is reeling from a violent car crash over the weekend that left three young adults dead and three other young people badly injured.

The victims, whose ages range from 17 to 22, all had roots in the City of Roses.

A memorial of flowers and candles assembled near a ruined building in east Pasadena marked the spot where the car’s driver crashed his Tesla after hitting a nearby curb at more than 100 mph just before 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

The driver and two passengers died in the crash, and three more passengers were hospitalized with serious injuries, according to authorities.

By Monday morning, the memorial outside the unoccupied building on East Foothill Boulevard was replete with votive candles, a soccer ball and shoe, flowers and a pair of leather notebooks in which friends and family members could leave messages.

It’s where 20-year-old Sergio Nava laid a bouquet of flowers for his friend Stephan Michael “Mike” Pfeiffer, whom he met in middle school at Marshall Fundamental Secondary School in Pasadena. They talked almost every day, and Nava thinks that if the circumstances were different — if maybe Nava hadn’t been scheduled to work Saturday at a local Ralphs supermarket — he could have been in the car with his friend.

“I know he’s in a better place now and he’s looking down on us,” Nava said, placing the flowers.

Pfeiffer, 20, was from Pasadena, according to the Los Angeles County medical examiner’s office. The other two persons killed were a man in his 20s whose name has not been released pending notification to his family, and Moheb Reda Samuel, 22, of Pasadena. The medical examiner’s office previously provided an incorrect spelling for Samuel’s first name.

Samuel was the driver of the white, 5-seat Tesla Model 3 that was heading west on Foothill Boulevard when it appeared to have lost control navigating a bend in the road. It hit a curb and launched into the air, according to Lt. Anthony Russo with the Pasadena Police Department.

The car probably soared more than 130 feet before it collided with a utility pole and the building, Russo said.

The cause of the crash remains under investigation, but based on preliminary information, it does not appear that the vehicle malfunctioned, according to Russo. The county medical examiner’s office will perform a toxicology test to determine if drugs or alcohol were a factor in the crash.

Samuel and the passenger in the front seat died at the scene, while three out of the four rear passengers were thrown from the vehicle during the crash, Russo said. The fourth passenger remained in the vehicle because they were wearing their seat belt.

One of the passengers thrown from the vehicle died, and two others were transported to a hospital along with the survivor who remained in the vehicle’s back seat, Russo said. All three passengers are expected to survive, according to authorities.

Samuel was charged in September with driving under the influence with a blood alcohol level above the legal limit, according to court records. He appeared in a Pasadena courtroom in March for his arraignment and a plea hearing.

Maranatha High School in Pasadena released a statement about the crash because some of the victims involved had been students at the private Christian school. It did not offer any names, but a school athletics website shows that Samuel was a varsity soccer player who graduated from Maranatha in 2020. Grief counselors were being made available to the school and community, according to the statement posted to Facebook on Sunday.

The school asked the public to respect the privacy of the families whose loved ones were involved in the crash.

“We are deeply saddened by this weekend’s tragic car accident that claimed precious young lives. We mourn this immense loss and extend our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those affected,” the statement said. “During this difficult time, we turn to our faith in Christ Jesus for comfort and strength and ask others to join us in praying for all who are suffering due to this tragedy.”

On Monday morning, a student wearing a Maranatha sweater approached the memorial and left flowers. Pieces of the Tesla remained strewn about the street and sidewalk.

A large gash in the sidewalk spoke of where the vehicle went airborne, and another large scratch on the ground at a nearby corner showed where the Tesla eventually came to rest.

Among the items at the memorial was a skateboard propped on the handles of the ruined building’s door with the name “Mike” scratched onto the board’s deck.

“He was a humble guy and he didn’t like to show off. He was just very sweet to his grandfather and grandmother,” Nava said. Pfeiffer had taken care of his grandfather until his grandfather’s death, and was living with his grandmother at the time of the accident, according to Nava.

Nava said his friend was a skateboarder who studied kinesiology at Pasadena City College. Pfeiffer had planned to change his major, but remained undecided about what to study next.

“I guess we’ll never know,” Nava said as he picked up one of the notebooks to write a message for his friend. Pfeiffer would have been 21 this July, according to Nava.

A GoFundMe campaign has been started to help pay for Pfeiffer’s funeral services.