10
MARINE | Cargo casualties In association with Gard
cargo onboard, will terminals and shoreside decision makers be able to correctly assess the situation and deal with the problem? Will shore-based entities be able to carry out the procedures and handle the situation before it escalates into a fire scenario? Regrettably, there are examples of reluctance and bad interdictions taken from the shore, leading to escalating situations and sometimes fatal accidents on-board. The fact that container ships enter smaller ports with less experienced first responder agencies may mean less adequate responses and lack of availability of fire-fighting equipment such as tugs equipped with water cannons. And in major ports, even with highly trained and experienced shoreside responders, the vast myriad of products carried aboard containers on container ships will mean that sometimes a novel situation will be presented that will challenge even highly experienced personnel.
SHIPPER’S PERSPECTIVE
Container shipping starts with selling and buying cargo which triggers the need for transportation. Generally, shippers and receivers have an interest in making transportation work smoothly. However, profit margins can be improved if transportation costs are reduced and yet packing, securing and declaring cargo correctly is a complicated issue, with all steps presenting essential costs and demands. Shippers making errors, deliberately or not, when loading dangerous cargo into containers is one of the biggest challenges for container shipping. This comes inherently with how the trade works. Container carriers rely on shippers to load, secure and declare cargo correctly and thereby make it safe for carriage. Mistakes and shortcuts are made too often, and in some cases, the consequences are severe. Research has revealed that alarmingly high numbers of dangerous goods, like batteries and chemicals, are shipped with inadequate securing and with the wrong cargo declaration provided to the carrier. In such situations, carriers are unable to designate safe stowage positions to mitigate the risk of exposure to heat sources or external physical impacts in these scenarios.
STACK COLLAPSES
Mis-declaration of cargo weights and securing of heavy cargo inside containers represent a great risk to the stability and integrity of the stow on board. It is a fact that 2020/21 was a bad season for stack collapses and containers lost at sea. Several of the largest incidents we have seen happened within a matter of a few months. In 2022 so far, we have not seen as severe a level of individual accidents. But, the number of cases concerning containers being lost in stack collapses at sea has been The Marine Insurer | June 2022
high again. Causative factors range from heavy weather to malfunction of securing equipment, wrongfully secured cargo within containers, error in weight and stability calculations and lack of maintenance of boxes or container sockets. The state of the container shipping market may affect this type of occurrence. We have also seen ships losing boxes overboard while waiting at anchorage or when slow steaming to avoid/time congested ports. Also, a relatively new feature of this year’s portfolio of lost containers at sea cases is bulk ships fitted to carry containers that are also losing boxes.
ENVIRONMENTAL CONSIDERATIONS
The environmental impact of a large-scale container ship fire may be quite obvious, but, perhaps these impacts are not reported and reviewed in as much detail as they should be. Wreck removals such as the X-press Pearl or the SSL Kolkata show quite clearly the damage to the environment
