Stacks of containers burned and all business stopped! Destroyed port could shut down for months

Iskenderun Port is located on the Mediterranean coast and is the second largest port in southeastern Turkey. Turkey's trade faces long-term obstacles after the strong earthquake partially collapsed the port and a fire broke out in the container yard at the terminal. The port has now stopped all operations. A P&I club said the damage was as high as US$679 million, and warned that damage from the quake could disrupt operations at the port for months.

Video clips posted on Twitter by Turkey's transport ministry's Shipping Directorate showed a post-apocalyptic scene at Iskenderun port, with piles of charred containers and ship hulls strewn across the terminals of what was once one of the largest container ports on the Mediterranean coast. More than a thousand containers are being dismantled one by one and work to resume operations at the port "will begin soon," the directorate-general said. However, given the structural damage it has suffered, it remains doubtful whether the Limark Group-operated Iskenderun terminal will be able to resume operations anytime soon.

Although the fire in Iskenderun Port has been extinguished, there is still a lot of smoke in the burning container, and there have been reports of resurgence from time to time recently, so several fire engines can be seen at the scene on standby . In the past two days, firefighting aircraft have been seen patrolling the relevant areas from time to time in Iskenderun Port.

It can be observed at the scene that related cleaning work is still in progress. According to Turkish media reports, this earthquake had a great impact on the relevant internal structures of Iskenderun Port. Coupled with the losses caused by the fire, the insurance claim amount may reach hundreds of millions of dollars, and this may also be from 2020 The largest port destruction incident since the Beirut Port explosion in Lebanon in 2019.

According to what CCTV reporters learned from the Turkish Maritime Affairs Administration, due to the serious internal damage to its related structures, Iskenderun Port has suspended all operations, and may remain suspended for several months.

But there is one thing that must be resolved as soon as possible. Some containers here are waiting to be transported out as soon as possible in the yard. Because some infrastructures of the port have been damaged, the surrounding roads have also been damaged to varying degrees during the earthquake. Now, how to smoothly transport these containers out of the yard is a big problem. In addition, this earthquake also caused some damage to the railway lines of related cities, which means that the transportation connection between Iskenderun Port and the inland is also affected to a certain extent. The authorities said that they are trying to find out countermeasures.