Crane collapses at Port of Vancouver after hit by vessel

No injuries were reported in the incident, which occurred early Monday morning, but both the crane and Evergreen ship sustained damage.    Canadian investigators are looking into a gantry crane that collapsed early Monday morning at the Port of Vancouver and fell onto an Evergreen Liner containership at Global Container Terminals (GCT) Vanterm.
   A statement from the Transportation Safety Board (TSB) said the ship — the 7,024-TEU containership Ever Summit — struck the ship-to-shore crane while berthing and both the vessel and crane sustained damage. In a statement, Evergreen Line said the incident, which occurred about 4 a.m., “partly crushed some containers on the vessel’s deck,” but there were no injuries at the scene or environmental pollution at the port.
   The cause of the accident is under investigation by concerned parties, read Evergreen Line’s statement. The TSB is an independent agency that aims to advance transportation safety and does not assign fault or determine civil or criminal liability.
   Two tugboats were holding the ship against the dock to prevent it from shifting, which could cause more possible damage, said GCT spokeswoman Louanne Wong, according to The Canadian Press. 
   “The cranes themselves are very expensive. It could be upwards of $50 million,” said Joe Spears, managing director of Horseshoe Bay Marine Group, in a report by Global News Canada. “There’s the damage to the ship. There’s the delay of the ship, the delay of the dock.” 
   Truck and rail operations remained active Monday, Wong said, but vessel operations were shut down and an exclusion zone was set up to manage the scene.
   No other operations outside of the terminal were impacted, Danielle Jang of the Port of Vancouver said in a statement per The Canadian Press. The port authority is providing incident support to ensure work resumes safely and efficiently, she said.
   “As soon as the damaged crane is removed and the terminal is safe, the containership will begin cargo-handling operation, undergo full inspection and receive necessary repairs,” the statement from Evergreen Line read.
   But the removal of the crane could be time consuming, Spears said.
   “To get that off there you’re probably going to have to bring in a large floating crane or a shore-based crane,” Spears said in the report. “A container crane can only lift 40 tons, so you’re going to have to cut that up, but that might be weeks.”