Responding to containership incidents (2012)

Throughout its history, ITOPF has been involved with many containership incidents of varying degrees of severity. Recently attended high profile incidents, such as the MSC NAPOLI (UK, 2007), MSC CHITRA (India, 2010) and RENA (New Zealand, 2011), have resulted in long, complex responses, both in terms of the salvage operations that followed, as well as the recovery of spilled oil and cargo. The cargoes have included a wide range of substances and materials, some of which were considered to be hazardous. One of ITOPF’s primary objectives on site is to understand the impact that substances lost from a ship may have on the marine environment, in order to assess the most effective and efficient response techniques applicable. When responding to containership incidents the added complication of numerous substances other than oil also being lost often presents an additional set of considerations. The aim of this paper is to highlight the common challenges that have arisen following serious containership incidents, focusing largely on the MSC CHITRA incident response in India, in order to encourage preparedness and planning for other such events.

Paper presented at INTERSPILL 2012, London, UK, 13-15 March 2012

Categories: Container Ship, Spill Response, Papers