As misdeclared cargo continues causing fires onboard, the digital freight forwarder iContainers, highlighted that the shipping industry needs to pay attention to this increased issue. Namely during the last two years, has been noticed a growing number of container fires coming from shipper’s misdeclared dangerous cargoes.
The vice president of operations at iContainers, Klaus Lysdal marked that this is an imperative issue which needs to be tackled immediately, as growing vessels with larger capacities, further increase the possibilities of carrying misdeclared cargo onboard.
At this point, forwarders are still taking shippers’ word for what’s loaded in the container. But from a forwarder’s perspective, that tends to increase the risk that clients who are not well-versed in hazardous cargo and looking to ship it may come to forwarders. This puts the forwarder at risk, especially if the shippers’ paperwork is not in order.
…Klaus Lysdal continued.
Moreover, iContainers noted that its time for the shipping industries to take action and face the problem before it gets any worse.
Some of the carriers’ initial steps to increase fines may help. But if this persists, it could result in mandatory manual inspections or similar moves to protect against these types of issues. Something like that would obviously lead to additional costs involved with shipping. But something has to happen as we cannot keep having fires happening onboard vessels
…iContainers’ vice president of operations said.
It is proved that during such incidents onboard, can somone lost his life, while damages the vessel and the cargoes, increasing the shipping costs.
Several days ago, on 4 January 2020, the containership knows as “Cosco Pacific” reported unexpectedly fire in its cargo hold containers, as the cargo of the lithium batteries inside the container had been falsely declared as spare parts and accessories.
