UK-flagged Ever Liberal arrived in Taipei, Taiwan on 2 January after losing several containers off Japan on 30 December 2020 after encountering strong winds and heavy seas in the East China Sea southwest of Kyushu. The ship was on a voyage from Busan, Korea to Los Angeles.
The owner of the vessel, Evergreen Marine has confirmed that 36 boxes were lost overside, and more containers have collapsed in the stack. As far as is known, none of the boxes were listed as carrying hazardous goods. Evergreen has said no crew were injured in the incident. The Japan Coast Guard was notified so that it could alert shipping to the potential hazard of floating containers.
In an unrelated development, Hapag Lloyd has issued an update on the status of the ONE Apus which suffered a major container loss during a storm in November 2020.
The vessel remains berthed in Kobe, Japan and Hapag Lloyd has said that Indications, from its partner ONE, are that in excess of 1800 containers were lost overboard. That is still an estimate and to be confirmed once a full assessment of the above deck containers and damage is complete.
Following inspections and approval by the Japanese Coast Guard the removal of on deck containers continues and has resulted in 126 units discharged as of today. Discharging alone is due to take at least a month or more.
All discharging operations and inspection work has been suspended on the ONE Apus during the Japan New Year holidays which ran from December 30, 2020 to January 4, 2021. The operation and inspection process will resume on January 5, 2021.
