The Dali container ship was reported losing propulsion prior to hitting the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, Maryland at 1:30 a.m. on Tuesday, collapsing the bridge spans and sending 8 people and several vehicles into the river.

Baltimore authorities said two people were rescued while six others are presumed dead after a search in the Patapsco River. In addition to the human loss, the bridge collapse will likely cause significant economic disruption.

Baltimore is one of the busiest ports on the East Coast of the US. Although it only handled about 3% of all East Coast and Gulf Coast imports this year through Jan. 31, the span is crucial to cars and light trucks, notably with European carmakers such as Mercedes-Benz Group AG, Volkswagen AG, and BMW operating facilities in and around the port.

It’s also the second-largest terminal for US exports of coal, with a shutdown potentially hitting shipments to India. The annual value of goods passing through the port is about 28 billion USD, according to the American Trucking Association.

Nearby ports in New Jersey and Virginia face the threat of being overwhelmed by traffic that’s being diverted from Baltimore. Likewise, about a dozen large vessels are now stranded inside Baltimore’s harbor as well as a similar number of tug boats. The collapse also affects about 35,000 people using the bridge every day.

The Francis Scott Key Bridge which took five years to build and was completed in 1977, stood as a symbol of US infrastructure. The cost at the time was 141 million USD. A rebuild today is likely to cost ‘several billion dollars’.

President Joe Biden said he wants the federal government to pay and vowed to quickly reopen the port and rebuild the bridge.

But Baltimore is in for a lengthy reconstruction. It could be weeks before any port operations resume as officials need to recover missing victims, remove bridge debris, as well as the 300-meter ship, Dali, from the river. Only then can the blocked channel reopen.