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October/November 2007                                                                                            Volume 13 - Number 1/2

Perspectives...

Personal experience with 2004 Indonesia Tsunami
By Ying Li

Review:
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake which occurred in the morning of December 26, 2004 triggered a series of devastating tsunamis along the coasts of Indian Ocean, killing large number of people and inundating coastal communities across South and Southeast Asia, including parts of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand. This was one of the ten worst earthquakes in recorded history with almost 230 thousands people dead and missing.

Detailed experience:
In December 2004, I was working for China Shipping Container Lines Corporation in its headquarters in Shanghai. Although I didn’t witness the devastating scene in Southeast Asia, I had been working with the maritime emergency response team of our company and watched the whole process of mitigation and response activities, including our 14 ships’ routing changes and urgent in-harbor operations.

Right after the tsunami at noon in December 26, the agents in Southeast Asia sent us reports, showing the safety status of all in-port cargos and ship operations in Southeast Asia’s hub ports such as Singapore Port, Port Kelang in Malaysia and other ports of feeder network in Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand and Sri Lanka. Most of these ports were closed for a little while because of abnormal big waves except for Singapore Port and Port Kelang, which did not directly face the Tsunami in Indian Ocean and were still in normal operation. 4 containers ships were in port task at these two ports. Among the other ships of our company in that area, 1 ironstone cargo vessel, 5 oil tanks and 3 chemicals tanks were all in safe conditions, either in harbor or in deep sea area where big ships would not be affected by severe tsunamis. However, One China Shipping Group cargo vessel named Peach Mountain encountered the tough situation and broke its three mooring ropes, and was later anchored in an anchorage point. My colleague Mr. Zhou in Shanghai, who was in charge of Peach Mountain’s emergency response activity, said that Peach Mountain had a hard time during the tsunami and fortunately survived eventually.

At 9am in December 26 2004, Peach Mountain was going to start its loading operation at Chennai Port in southeast Indian when a sudden tidal wave came into the harbor. Waves covered the dock and made the water level rise by 2 to 3 meters. Chennai Port suffered a power disruption and all the berthing and discharging operations were suspended. One container on the crane was swept away; a few container ships and oil tanks had their mooring ropes broken and were floating free in the basin. Several vessels were pushed against the berthing wall by heavy currents and crashed into each other after being tossed about like toys in the giant tides. It all happened in less than an hour. According to an eyewitness from Peach Mountain, a small ship swirled several times, before hitting a large ship and was dragged out of the harbor. Three ships were involved in the collision. Gem of Tuticorin, loading sugar, sustained heavy damage; it is estimated that about 1,500 tons of raw sugar was in the hatch. The other vessels were ABG Kesava and Canadian Express. ABG-Kesava caused damage to Gem of Tuticorin, hit two hoppers on the wharf, and also hit the wharf cranes demolishing the equipments. Finally, Peach Mountain got in contact with China Shipping headquarters and started urgent self-rescue. The captain decided to move out of the basin with the concern that other oil tanks might block the ship entry channel and collide to cause explosion there.

It was fortunate that a collision did not occur. The tide went back in the late afternoon December 26 and operations in Chennai Port returned to normal two days later. A report from our agency at Chennai Port showed that the loss caused by the tsunami was about Rs 10 crore on the damage to the infrastructure, including the wharf, equipments and cranes; another Rs 10 crore would be needed on dredging to remove the silt formation.

Relief supplies after tsunami
In March 7 2005 a container ship CSCL XIAMEN, which belongs to China Shipping Container Lines Corporation, started a shipment from Tianjin with relief goods and materials provided by Chinese government and arrived at Port Kelang Malaysia in March 17 and at Palauan of Indonesia on the next day.