Maersk, the largest container shipping line and vessel operator in the world, updated information on Tuesday that its two ships lost 1,010 containers overboard in the Pacific Ocean recently, adding the total loss by transpacific ships to almost 3,000 since from last November.

The Danish company confirmed that the 13,100 TEU-capacity container ship Maersk Eindhoven lost some 260 containers overboard after a brief loss of propulsion in heavy seas on Feb. 17, approximately 45 nautical miles off northern Japan, and another 65 containers were damaged.

Meanwhile, the company said Maersk Essen, which lost some 750 containers overboard in heavy weather back on Jan. 16, was cleared to sail on Monday and was on its voyage from Mexico to Port of Los Angeles (POLA).

The two cargo sister ships in the Maersk Edinburgh-class are registered in Denmark and operated by Maersk on the company's Transpacific 6 Asia-U.S. West coast service.

The Maersk's accidents, which happened as the ships made their way from Xiamen in China to Los Angeles, are two of similar incidents to hit the transpacific trade since November.

In one of the worst cases of cargo losses on record, the ONE Apus lost 1,816 containers about 1,600 nautical miles northwest of Hawaii after reportedly sailing into a severe storm on Nov. 30 while en route to the Port of Long Beach (POLB). Other three similar accidents separately from last December to this January lost 153 containers.

A total of 2,979 containers were lost in these accidents. This number more than doubled the annual average calculated by the World Shipping Council, according to freightwaves.com.

The incidents came as container ships carrying goods from Asia were pouring into U.S. ports amid the pandemic-fueled cargo boom. According to the POLA, January imports were 518,000 TEUs, equivalent to 60 percent of the port's entire import container throughput in the first quarter of last year.

Source: Xinhua

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