Vessel traffic at the Panama Canal’s Miraflores locks was temporarily suspended due to a fire, as the canal’s administration informed on December 15.
According to reports, the fire started in a tunnel where the machinery of the lock is housed, but the other locks continued working normally.
As the Panama Canal Authority specifically said:
A fire outbreak was recorded in one of the machinery tunnels in the upper chamber of the Miraflores locks
No injuries were reported, but the transit of ships through this lock had to be temporarily suspended as a security measure. However, vessel transits through the Panama Canal’s Miraflores Locks were manually resumed, according to recent information.
Furthermore, Reuters noted that the Panama Canal has three sets of locks and only small boats transit through the Miraflores locks.
Earlier in 2022, Panama approved the amended tolls structure recommended by the Panama Canal board of directors. Shipowners will now face a bigger bill for transiting the canal.
With this approval, the Panama Canal will assume a simplified structure, reducing the number of tariffs from 430 to fewer than 60.
For transits of vessels in ballast condition for all market segments except for containerships, tolls will be calculated by applying 85% of the laden toll instead of the originally proposed 90%.
In addition, for containerships, the charge for empty containers will be reduced to $2 per teu in 2023, $4 per teu in 2024, and $6 per teu in 2025, instead of the $5, $6.50, and $8 that were initially proposed for each year, respectively.
