A Singapore-bound container vessel has remained stranded in the Bay of Bengal for the last seven days on sustaining damage in a collision with an oil tanker, leading to uncertainties over shipment of its cargo.
The container vessel MV Haian City is carrying around 700 TEUs of export-laden containers, mostly stuffed with garments.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star’s Google News channel. It was sailing out from the Chattogram port when it collided with Bangladesh flagged oil tanker Orion Express near Kutubdia causing damages to both the vessels on the morning of April 14. Due to the impact, an empty container fell into the sea.
The oil tanker managed to reach the Chittagong Urea Fertiliser jetty the same afternoon but the container vessel remains anchored at sea.
Officials at Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) and Mercantile Marine Department (MMD) said they would not allow the container vessel to leave until a survey report was available certifying that the vessel was fit for voyage.
Samudera Shipping Line, which chartered the vessel, in an update to its customers on Tuesday, stated that the vessel’s cargo hold 4 and 5 were flooded due to an underwater puncture on the port side hull.
Containers loaded in those cargo holds have been affected but the extent of the damage cannot be determined due to a lack of safe access, it said.
However, surveyor teams of the vessel’s owner and charterer are already on site to assess the degree of the damage, it added.
Exporters and freight forwarders expressed concern over shipment of the goods on board alongside possible damage.
Two of the containers contain school uniform and workwear worth $1.5 lakh of Savar-based garment maker Mehnaz Styles and Craft meant for a US-based buyer.
Arifur Rahman Khan, assistant general manager (commercial) of the firm, told The Daily Star that they were yet to know about the fate of their cargo.
The cargo was meant to be loaded onto a mother vessel at Singapore and the accident has created uncertainties over when the cargo will actually reach the transhipment port, he said.
Officials of different freight forwarders and shipping agents assume that the vessel would need to be repaired to be fit for sailing.
It is yet to be decided whether the repairs can be done at sea or at the port, said an official of Elite Cargo, a forwarder that has booking of containers on the vessel.
The MMD formed a two-member probe body led by Marine Surveyor Engineer Rafiqul Islam to investigate the cause of the collision, asses the losses and determine the liabilities.
Contacted, Islam said they already visited the oil tanker but was yet to visit the container vessel due to inclement weather.
They sought required documents and voice message records from both vessels, he said, adding that representatives of both vessels’ protection and indemnity clubs, the insuring firms, were working to assess the losses and liabilities.
He said the container vessel was listing on the side it had developed the puncture and needs to be made upright for the repairs.
A portion of the containers might need to be unloaded onto another vessel to make it upright, he opined.
CPA Secretary Md Omar Faruk said the next course of action would be decided only after receiving the assessment of a team sent by the vessel’s Vietnamese owner.
It might take a few days for a decision to be reached, he said.
