There are now 143 shipping containers floating, sinking or dragging along the Eastern coastline from Richards Bay southwards.
On Friday night, 99 of the small home-sized metal containers were tossed into the Indian Ocean when the brand new liquefied natural gas (LNG) dual-fuelled container vessel CMA CGM Belem was pounded by the latest in a relentless wave of massive mid-latitude cyclone storms which have charged up the coastline this winter.
They joined 44 containers thrown off CMA CGM’s huge container ship, Benjamin Franklin, which was hit by 10m swells off Durban on June 9.
None were recovered amid concerns that they contained damaging pollutants.
A navigational warning was issued to all vessels traversing the ocean area and the public was asked to report any sightings of the lost containers.
In a letter, the French shipping giant, CMA CGM, has described this as “dangerous rolling phenomena that could lead to container loss”.
The Dispatch asked SA Maritime Association (Samsa) spokesperson Tebogo Ramatjie who confirmed the vessel suffered “major internal stowage collapse” and “a loss of 99 containers”.
Asked what was in Belem’s lost containers, Ramatjie said: “We cannot comment on what was in the containers, however, we can confirm that they did not contain any dangerous goods.”
Vessel tracking website Marine.com classified Belem as carrying “Hazard A [Major]” cargo.
Ramatjie said the containers lost were of a standard type and were not containers built to carry fuel.
He said he was in a meeting and promised to explain further, but was not available later on Monday.
The 336m-long, 51m-high vessel built in the Changxing Shipbuilding Base in China was only delivered to its French owners at a takeover ceremony on June 28, at Hudong-Zhonghua Shipyard, according to shipping news site, Offshore Energy.
A source in shipping said the containers were all built with rubber seals which were carefully checked for any air leaks by inspectors.
“They float, for sure,” the source said.
The Belem is a green ship designed to run off natural gas, and has a huge wind deflector at the bow — expected to save 2% to 4% of fuel consumption — and an energy-saving deflector installed at the stern, which can improve the propeller propulsion efficiency, reduce energy consumption by about 1.5%, and reduce carbon dioxide gas emissions.
The Eastern Cape is in the firing line of these shipping environmental disasters as the globally-significant Agulhas current, which gets going from Durban gushes past the Eastern Cape bringing all with it.
On Monday, the current was hugging the Wild Coast at 3km/h only 3km from Coffee Bay, and 5.2km/h 20km further, according to Windy.com.
The Belem was hit by 6m swells at 6pm on Saturday night, according to the CSIR’s Wavenet Richards Bay wave data buoy.
The vessel had sought refuge in Maputo Bay where it was assessed and redirected under “slow steam” to Ngqura where it lay at anchor on Monday.
Ramatjie said: “Affected containers would be discharged at a container port facility. There are no reports of her having lost any containers while on her way to Algoa Bay.”
Litter4Tokens director Clare Swithenbank-Bowman said she was concerned about the cargo’s classification as Hazard A.
She warned the public that fossil fuel companies were not forced by regulations to classify their plastic pellets, known as nurdles, as hazardous despite their devastating impact on marine life.
Her organisation and many others were working to have them classified globally as hazardous.
In an earlier response, CMA CGM told her that none of the Benjamin Franklin’s missing 44 containers had carried nurdles or any other hazardous materials.
“CMA CGM immediately contacted and has been transparent with the authorities (Samsa): all information on the nature of the cargo [no dangerous goods] has been transmitted.
The company said it watched the weather “24/7” at three navigation fleet centres in Miami, Marseille and Singapore.
The company was researching “dangerous rolling phenomena that could lead to container loss”.
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