Lost Container Count Jumps to 345 – gCaptain

Dutch authorities demand clean-up costs from Swiss shipping line | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-shipping-containers-idUSKCN1OY19N

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Dutch authorities will hold Swiss shipping line MSC liable for the cost of cleaning up debris from more than 270 cargo containers that fell off one of its vessels and washed up on shore, officials said on Friday.

The Dutch coastguard said a criminal investigation had been launched by prosecutors into the incident, one of the largest of its kind off the coast of the Netherlands.

The containers, some holding hazardous chemicals, fell off one of the world’s largest container ships, the MSC Zoe, during a North Sea storm on Wednesday in German waters near the island of Borkum.

Roughly 35 containers have been located and the remainder were lost at sea, Water Management Minister Cora van Nieuwenhuizen wrote in a letter to parliament. “Those responsible (MSC) will be held liable,” she wrote.

Among the lost goods were car parts, refrigerators, toys and furniture, she wrote. “Several containers of hazardous materials were onboard. It is unclear how many fell off,” it said.

At least one container load of organic peroxide, a strong bleaching agent that can cause injury on contact with skin, was lost, the letter said. Residents were told not to touch 25-kg bags found on the shore.

Rough weather hampers clean-up of North Sea container spill | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-shipping-containers-idUSKCN1P31SQ

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Clean-up efforts after a container ship spill off the Dutch coast are being hampered by rough weather although progress is being made, the Swiss based vessel’s owner MSC said on Wednesday.

In one of the worst incidents off the coast of the Netherlands, more than 250 containers - some holding hazardous chemicals - fell off the MSC Zoe, one of the world’s largest container ships, during a North Sea storm on Jan. 2.

“This week, a storm is impacting the area being cleaned and unfortunately this will interrupt some operations,” MSC said on Wednesday. The accident happened in German waters near the Dutch island of Borkum.

MSC, the world’s no. 2 container shipping group, said it had made significant progress on the Dutch islands of Terschelling, Vlieland, Ameland and Schiermonnikoog in the Wadden Sea and on the mainland, with a total of 1,220 tonnes of debris collected so far.

Questions on #stowage as enquiries begin into how MSC Zoe spilled 281 boxes - The Loadstar
▻https://theloadstar.co.uk/questions-on-stowage-as-enquiries-begin-into-how-msc-zoe-spilled-281-

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There have also been questions about the stowage plan of the 23,000 teu containership – in particular, the lashing of rows seven, eight and nine, from where the boxes fell overboard.

The former managing director of salvage company Smit, Tak Klaas Reinigert, now resident on Schiermonnikoog, one of the islands affected by spills of styrene and other particles, told The Loadstar that, while the north-west force nine wind in the area may have been a hazard for small coasters,it should not have been a problem for a vessel as large as the MSC Zoe.

He also suggested the speed of the MSC Zoe when the incident occurred needed to be investigated, as well as the lashing of containers on top of the vessel. These fell off the midship, which he said was “odd”.

Meanwhile, Dr Bart Kuipers, port economist at Erasmus University, Rotterdam, said more thorough research needed to be carried out into the possible hazards involved in deploying ultra-large container vessels (ULCVs).

Dutch Coast Guard pictures show the containers which landed in the sea had not been not secured by lashing rods.

Niek Stam, an official at the FNV trade union, said it was hard to secure containers in rows seven, eight and nine in such way.

“Vessels can be loaded according to an automated loading scheme. Only the top rows are manually loaded. As a rule, #lashing is done by well-trained men, but not in every port,” he added.

In the case of the MSC Zoe, the last port of call prior to its arrival at Bremerhaven was Sines, in Portugal, and Mr Stam questioned whether the containers that went overboard had been loaded there.

“Nobody talks about the origin of those,” he told The Loadstar.

#arrimage #saisine

Swiss shipping line starts clean up of Dutch waters after container spill | Reuters
▻https://www.reuters.com/article/us-netherlands-shipping-containers-idUSKCN1P60BC

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Swiss shipping line MSC has started cleaning up Dutch sea waters, ten days after it lost nearly 300 containers from one of its largest cargo vessels in a storm.

“The clean up will likely take months”, Dutch water authorities spokesman Edwin de Feijter said on Saturday. “The largest part of the debris has been located, but there are still parts missing.”

291 containers, some holding hazardous chemicals, fell off one of the world’s largest container ships, the MSC Zoe, on Jan. 2 in German waters near the island of Borkum during a North Sea storm.

Two salvage ships left the harbor at IJmuiden, near Amsterdam, on Friday night, heading towards a container north of the tiny Rottumerplaat island, which is blocking an important shipping route between Germany and the Netherlands.

Work was planned to start at midday on Saturday, but rough weather looked set to delay the operation, De Feijter said, adding that 238 objects had been identified in the water so far.

“Those objects are not all entire containers, they can also be part of the cargo lost from broken ones.”

Seventeen containers washed up on shore on the Dutch islands of Terschelling, Vlieland, Ameland and Schiermonnikoog, with the debris of many others littering the islands’ beaches.

MSC, the world’s no. 2 container shipping group, on Wednesday said it had made significant progress on the Dutch islands, with a total of 1,220 tonnes of debris collected so far.

Dutch authorities last week said they would hold MSC liable for the cost of cleaning up the waters.

Roughly 100 soldiers joined the clean-up operation last week, while local authorities and volunteers had already gathered up tonnes of waste from several kilometers (miles) of coastline.

MSC Zoe Incident : Lost Container Count Jumps to 345 – gCaptain
▻https://gcaptain.com/msc-zoe-incident-lost-container-count-jumps-to-345

The estimated number of containers lost from the MSC Zoe during a North Sea storm in early January has risen to at least 345, more than 50 containers more than initially thought, the Dutch agency Rijkswaterstaat said Wednesday following a report from the shipowner. 

The new assessment comes after more of remaining containers on board the MSC Zoe, one of the world’s largest containerships, have now been unloaded at the Port of Gdansk in Poland.
[…]
While many of the containers sank, about two dozen washed up on the shores of the Wadden Islands, an island chain in the northern Netherlands
[…]
The number of containers with hazardous substances remains unchanged, the agency said.[…] Rijkswaterstaat says it expects a final count of the number of containers lost from the shipowner next week.