Two of India’s biggest ports have still not fully re-opened following the collision involving an MSC containership 11 days ago.
Yesterday, the Indian Navy escorted ships in and out of Mumbai and the country’s biggest container port, Nava Sheva, to guide them around containers that had fallen from the MSC Chitra into the busyshipping channel. Since the collision, the navy has escorted 134 vessels in and out of the ports, but those with a draught of 12.5 metres or more are still not being accepted, according to reports.
No one contacted by IFW was able to say when the ports would be operating at full capacity. Around 250 containers fell into the sea when the MSC Chitra and the steamer Khalijia 3 collided 8km
off the Mumbai coast on 7 August, blocking the shipping channel Mumbai Port Trust Chairman Rahul Asthana told the Press Trust of India that about 100 out of a total 250 containers were yet to be recovered from the water. And since the collision, nine more containers have fallen off the MSC Chitra, which is listing at a 30 degree angle.
The coastguard said that four of these boxes had been retrieved. The coastguard, navy and divers from salvor Smit International are searching for the missing 100 containers, with work concentrating on clearing the navigation channel. It said: “As a result of the closure, all full-container-load shipments from Northern India, estimated at around 40% of the total volume of Nava Sheva port, have to be re-routed via the ports of Mundra and Pipava.
Source: Damian Brett, IFW News, 18 August 2010