The Coast Guard clarified that the cargo ship that collided with a bridge in Baltimore was undergoing "routine engine maintenance" in the port previously.

Admiral Shannon Gilreath of the U.S. Coast Guard said during a press conference on Wednesday that authorities were informed the ship would be undergoing maintenance, adding that they were not notified of any problems.

The ship collided with a support column early Tuesday, causing the bridge to collapse. The bodies of two of the six workers who fell into the water were recovered earlier on Wednesday.

Investigators began collecting evidence from the cargo ship that collided with the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore and caused its collapse, while divers searched the waters under the twisted metal for six construction workers who fell into the harbor. Two bodies were recovered on Wednesday, and the others are presumed dead.

Divers found the bodies of the two men, aged 35 and 26, in the morning inside a small red truck submerged in about 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water near the central span of the bridge, according to Colonel Roland L. Butler Jr., during a Maryland State Police announcement at an evening press conference.

Butler said the victims were from Mexico, Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador, confirming that all search efforts were exhausted and, based on sonar scans, authorities "strongly" believe that the other vehicles containing the victims are covered by the superstructures and concrete from the collapsed bridge.

One missing co-worker said yesterday that he was told the workers were on a break and sitting in their trucks parked on the bridge when it collapsed.

The pace of the investigation accelerated as the Baltimore area suffered the sudden loss of a major transportation link that is part of the highway loop around the city. The disaster also led to the closure of the city's vital shipping industry port.

Jennifer Homendy, Chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, said that NTSB officials boarded the ship and planned to recover information from its electronics and documents.

The agency is also reviewing the voyage data recorder retrieved by the U.S. Coast Guard and is establishing a timeline of what led to the incident, which federal and state officials said appears to be an accident.

The ship's crew issued a distress call early Tuesday, saying they lost power and the ship's steering system just minutes before it collided with one of the bridge columns.

At least eight people fell into the water. Two were rescued, but the other six — part of the construction crew filling holes on the bridge — were missing and presumed dead.

Debris complicated the search operation, according to a Department of Homeland Security memo described by a law enforcement official to the Associated Press. The official was not authorized to discuss details of the document or the investigation and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.

Maryland Governor Wes Moore said divers faced dangerous conditions.

"They’re there in the dark where they can literally see a foot in front of them. They are trying to navigate twisted metal, and they’re also in a place where people are now presumed to have lost their lives.”

Among the missing are people from Guatemala, Honduras, and Mexico, according to diplomats from those countries.

One worker, a 38-year-old man from Honduras who came to the United States nearly two decades ago, was described by his brother as a businessman and hard worker. He started last fall with the company performing maintenance work on the bridge.

Captain Michael Burns Jr. of the Responsible Marine Energy Center said that bringing a ship into or out of ports with limited maneuvering space is "one of the most technically challenging and demanding things we do."

He said, "There are few things more terrifying than losing power in confined waters." When a ship loses propulsion and steering, "it’s actually at the mercy of the wind and current."

A video showed the ship moving at a speed that Maryland’s governor said was about 15 kilometers per hour toward the 2.6-kilometer-long bridge. Traffic was still moving across the distance, and some vehicles appeared to escape seconds before. The accident caused the bridge to break and fall into the water within seconds.

The ship’s last-moment warning gave police enough time to stop interstate highway traffic. One officer pulled over across lanes and planned to drive on the bridge to alert the construction crew once another officer arrived. But he did not get the chance when the disabled ship headed toward the bridge.