Reports of problems with cargo washing overboard from container ships just keep coming. In the latest incident, 83 containers tumbled off the 880-foot cargo ship YM Efficiency in heavy seas off the east coast of Australia. And debris from some of the containers was washing up on beaches north of Sydney.
The Efficiency, owned by a Taiwan company but registered in Liberia, hit 16-foot seas in the Tasman Sea about 18 miles off the coast and rolled heavily. The 83 containers slid off the ship while another 30 were damaged but remained on board. TV pictures taken by a news helicopter showed some containers split open and hanging off the ship. (See the video in the link below.)
Australian officials said the containers posed a hazard to navigation, as well as to humpback whales in the area. “They’re 40-foot containers and they sit about a foot or two off the water…even in the best of conditions they’re difficult to spot, but at night and in a swell, almost impossible,” one told Reuters. Read more:
