European ports including Rotterdam and Antwerp are tightening safety checks as they prepare to unload the first ships from Japan since last month’s earthquake led to radioactive discharges from a damaged nuclear plant, Bloomberg reports.
Rotterdam, Europe’s biggest container port, will screen for radiation while ships are still at sea. Antwerp, the No. 2, will make similar checks aboard vessels for which Japan was one of the last 10 ports of call, with any abnormal readings triggering an inspection by Belgium’s Federal Agency for Nuclear Control.
Ships that left Japan soon after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami led to leaks at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic plant will reach Europe mid-month after a journey of about 30 days. Antwerp says it plans a “thorough” screening of the first vessel to dock and will carry out random checks on subsequent arrivals.
“People working in the port and responsible for unloading ships and cargo from Japan are worried,” Antwerp spokeswoman Annik Dirkx said in an e-mailed response to questions. “That’s why we want to do this, to show that there is really no reason.”
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake yesterday spared the stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant in Japan, although workers struggling to cool radioactive fuel were evacuated, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said based on its initial assessment.
The Belgian nuclear agency “has guaranteed” that ships and cargo from Japan pose no threat, Dirkx said. With the checks carried out at sea the unloading and transfer of cargo won’t be disrupted, assuming no radiation is detected, she added.
Chinese Refusal
Rotterdam doesn’t expect to discover concentrations of radioactivity above permitted levels and will also carry out the scans before before ships enter port to confirm this, Harbor Master Rene de Vries said in an e-mail.
“We have an obligation to do this on behalf of those directly involved in handling the ship,” he said. “By doing so, we can remove many concerns and people can work safely.”
While the container vessel MOL Presence was turned away from the Chinese port of Xiamen last month with “abnormal” readings after passing 67 nautical miles (124 kilometers) off Fukushima prefecture, the levels were “barely detectable,” according to Tokyo-based owner Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., and equal to less than 20 percent of the dose from a chest X-ray.
U.S. Navy spokesman Commander Jeff Davis said March 28 that radiation can be washed from ships with soap and water and poses no health risk. The Navy is aiding the recovery effort.
Chernobyl Controls
The checks to be carried out before vessels tie up at European docks represent a tightening of already-rigorous tests introduced following the world’s worst nuclear accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the ports of Antwerp and Hamburg said.
“Tests for radiation are not a problem for us, because the necessary technical resources were built up and appropriate controls were implemented after Chernobyl,” Cornelia Prufer- Storcks, Hamburg’s senator for health and consumer protection, said in a statement on April 4.
Under the Megaports system established after the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, containers entering Antwerp are scanned for radioactivity on a daily basis using detector panels installed by Belgian Customs in collaboration with U.S. authorities, according to spokeswoman Dirkx.
Six other European ports -- Rotterdam, Lisbon, Southampton in England, Zeebrugge in Belgium, Piraeus in Greece and Algeciras in Spain -- also had the technology installed as of September, according to the project’s website.
Hamburg Checks
At Hamburg, Europe’s third-biggest container port, the local government will control food and animal feed products that arrive from Japan, checking that they were screened on departure in accordance with European Union requirements to deal with the aftermath of the nuclear leak, the state senate said.
Most ships from Japan that tie up in Hamburg will in any case have been screened en route in ports such as Hong Kong, the senate said in its statement.
The arrival of the first vessels to leave Japan after March 11 will indicate the extent to which exports from the Asian country have been disrupted by damage wrought by the catastrophe and by plant closures during electricity blackouts. Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. are already slashing output at their European factories as parts shortages filter through.
Japan handles about 4 percent of the world’s containers and prior to the disaster almost 20 percent of the global fleet by box capacity was timetabled to call there, according to Clarkson Plc, the world’s biggest shipbroker.
Vessels are continuing to avoid a 30-kilometer no-go area around the Fukushima site as instructed by the Japanese government, and many shipping lines have adopted larger exclusion zones to avoid off-shore debris from the tsunami.
Still, companies including Denmark’s A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, the world’s largest container line, and France’s CMA CGM SA, the No. 3, have continued calling at ports in the Tokyo area since the earthquake and tsunami, while Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd AG is resuming port calls at Yokohama and Tokyo this week.
Rotterdam, Europe’s biggest container port, will screen for radiation while ships are still at sea. Antwerp, the No. 2, will make similar checks aboard vessels for which Japan was one of the last 10 ports of call, with any abnormal readings triggering an inspection by Belgium’s Federal Agency for Nuclear Control.
Ships that left Japan soon after the March 11 earthquake and tsunami led to leaks at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi atomic plant will reach Europe mid-month after a journey of about 30 days. Antwerp says it plans a “thorough” screening of the first vessel to dock and will carry out random checks on subsequent arrivals.
“People working in the port and responsible for unloading ships and cargo from Japan are worried,” Antwerp spokeswoman Annik Dirkx said in an e-mailed response to questions. “That’s why we want to do this, to show that there is really no reason.”
A 7.1-magnitude earthquake yesterday spared the stricken Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant in Japan, although workers struggling to cool radioactive fuel were evacuated, Tokyo Electric Power Co. said based on its initial assessment.
The Belgian nuclear agency “has guaranteed” that ships and cargo from Japan pose no threat, Dirkx said. With the checks carried out at sea the unloading and transfer of cargo won’t be disrupted, assuming no radiation is detected, she added.
Chinese Refusal
Rotterdam doesn’t expect to discover concentrations of radioactivity above permitted levels and will also carry out the scans before before ships enter port to confirm this, Harbor Master Rene de Vries said in an e-mail.
“We have an obligation to do this on behalf of those directly involved in handling the ship,” he said. “By doing so, we can remove many concerns and people can work safely.”
While the container vessel MOL Presence was turned away from the Chinese port of Xiamen last month with “abnormal” readings after passing 67 nautical miles (124 kilometers) off Fukushima prefecture, the levels were “barely detectable,” according to Tokyo-based owner Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., and equal to less than 20 percent of the dose from a chest X-ray.
U.S. Navy spokesman Commander Jeff Davis said March 28 that radiation can be washed from ships with soap and water and poses no health risk. The Navy is aiding the recovery effort.
Chernobyl Controls
The checks to be carried out before vessels tie up at European docks represent a tightening of already-rigorous tests introduced following the world’s worst nuclear accident in Chernobyl, Ukraine, in 1986, and after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the U.S., the ports of Antwerp and Hamburg said.
“Tests for radiation are not a problem for us, because the necessary technical resources were built up and appropriate controls were implemented after Chernobyl,” Cornelia Prufer- Storcks, Hamburg’s senator for health and consumer protection, said in a statement on April 4.
Under the Megaports system established after the Al-Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, containers entering Antwerp are scanned for radioactivity on a daily basis using detector panels installed by Belgian Customs in collaboration with U.S. authorities, according to spokeswoman Dirkx.
Six other European ports -- Rotterdam, Lisbon, Southampton in England, Zeebrugge in Belgium, Piraeus in Greece and Algeciras in Spain -- also had the technology installed as of September, according to the project’s website.
Hamburg Checks
At Hamburg, Europe’s third-biggest container port, the local government will control food and animal feed products that arrive from Japan, checking that they were screened on departure in accordance with European Union requirements to deal with the aftermath of the nuclear leak, the state senate said.
Most ships from Japan that tie up in Hamburg will in any case have been screened en route in ports such as Hong Kong, the senate said in its statement.
The arrival of the first vessels to leave Japan after March 11 will indicate the extent to which exports from the Asian country have been disrupted by damage wrought by the catastrophe and by plant closures during electricity blackouts. Nissan Motor Co. and Honda Motor Co. are already slashing output at their European factories as parts shortages filter through.
Japan handles about 4 percent of the world’s containers and prior to the disaster almost 20 percent of the global fleet by box capacity was timetabled to call there, according to Clarkson Plc, the world’s biggest shipbroker.
Vessels are continuing to avoid a 30-kilometer no-go area around the Fukushima site as instructed by the Japanese government, and many shipping lines have adopted larger exclusion zones to avoid off-shore debris from the tsunami.
Still, companies including Denmark’s A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S, the world’s largest container line, and France’s CMA CGM SA, the No. 3, have continued calling at ports in the Tokyo area since the earthquake and tsunami, while Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd AG is resuming port calls at Yokohama and Tokyo this week.