Capsized Bangladeshi container vessel back on water at Kolkata port
Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) has refloated a Bangladeshi private container vessel, MV Marintrust 01, which capsized at a jetty of the Shyamaprasad Mukherji Port in Kolkata on 24 March this year.
The port authority restored the vessel and retrieved all 165 containers after five months of salvage operation ending Saturday (17 September).
The container vessel plying on coastal shipping route between India and Bangladesh capsized around 10:40am on 24 March just after loading operations had been completed. The accident was apparently caused by the erroneous manner in which the cargo was loaded.
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There were 165 containers on board, 77 on deck and 88 containers on hold. Several of the containers had fallen off the deck into the water. The Kolkata port authority also rescued 15 crew of the vessel.
The owner of M/S Marin Trust Ltd engaged M/S Gill Marine as a salvor for refloating and restoring the vessels but the salvage operations were suspended after the authority abandoned the container vessel and refused to bear the cost of salvage operation.
But the Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) then resumed the salvage operation and refloated the vessel. On re-floatation, the owner of the vessel, Marin Trust Ltd, has requested permission to tow the vessel back to Bangladesh.
The 83-metre long cargo ship was built in 2018. The ship left Chattogram on 20 March to carry goods from Kolkata.
The cargo ship belongs to Marin Trust Ltd which usually transports containers through domestic marine routes. They also carry goods on the Dhaka-Chattogram route from Kolkata under the India-Bangladesh Shipping Protocol Agreement.
