Hapag-Lloyd plans to resume Nagoya calls

Hapag-Lloyd plans to resume Nagoya calls    Hapag-Lloyd said it plans to resume calls at Nagoya, Japan, Wednesday, but said its vessels will not return to Tokyo or Yokohama immediately.
   Eva Gjersvik, senior director group communication, said the company had only one ship in the country at the time of the tsunami, which left shortly thereafter, and has since confined its calls to Kobe.
   “We monitor things very closely. As long as Fukushima is not 100 percent clear, we do not want to take any risk for our crew and ship and cargo,” she said.
   She noted Hapag-Lloyd is a member of the Grand Alliance, and each member makes its own decision as to which ports to call. NYK Line has continued to call Tokyo and Yokohama, and they are “considered safe ports, there is no question about it. It is an individual decision. It has nothing to do with the Grand Alliance or any other partner,” she said. The other Grand Alliance member is OOCL.
   The Bureau of Port and Harbor Tokyo Metropolitan Government Web site in a statement said it is monitoring environmental radiation and that “current numerical measurement doesn't indicate any effect on health. So please set your heart at ease.”
   Gjersvik said Hapag-Lloyd is also flagging containers that have come within 100 miles of the Fukushima power station and is taking them out of service temporarily until they can be checked to see if they have suffered any contamination.
   On Sunday, Bloomberg News reported that an MOL ship, the MOL Presence was turned away from the port of Xiamen in China after officials said they had detected abnormal amounts of radiation on the ship. The article said the ship had passed within about 67 miles of Fukushima province.
   American Shipper could not immediately confirm that report.