Rotterdam enjoys 'unusually safe year' despite pressures on space
ROTTERDAM'S port authority has reported yet another fall in reported incidents, calling 2006 "an unusually safe year", writes Helen Hill.
Harbour master Jaap Lems has adjusted the safety norm for the port downwards for the fourth consecutive year, from 132 to 121 incidents.
Last year the authority recorded 119 nautical accidents from about 1m shipping movements in which 36,033 oceangoing vessels arrived and 130,000-150,000 inland vessels arrived in the region.
But the number of minor accidents, classified as superficial damage, was up.The authority's 10 patrol vessels were deployed 451 times ; 132 times for fires, 113 times to rescue people from drowning, save passengers or crew members from perilous situations or transfer wounded or sick people to ambulances and on 60 occasions to contain pollution. The number of registered spills was lower at 284 compared with 334 in 2005. Officially 51 cu m of polluted liquids entered the water, of which 80% was cleaned up. Already this year 800 tonnes of oil has polluted the harbour when the CMA CGM Claudel hit an oil jetty at the Maasvlakte terminal in the severe January storms.
Mr Lems said that the number of oceangoing vessels in the Rotterdam region had increased further from 34,954 to 36,033. But the space available to shipping was under increasing pressure. It was becoming more and more difficult to find room for buoy facilities, public berths and waiting berths for inland vessels due to the increase in demand for housing and offices in the vicinity of the port and because of the expansion of port sites.
A number of incidents involving inland tankers in other ports had prompted the harbour master to increase inspections.