Due to a cyclonic storm which took place along Australia’s East Coast recently, its Newcastle Port, the country’s largest coal export port, had to be closed and all shipments stopped. The port was expected to re-open on Thursday April 23rd, 2015, according to Reuters.
PTI previously reported that a storm had caused major damage to the Port of Buenos Aires in Argentina, where an MOL containership had been partly crushed by a fallen gantry crane.
A spokeswoman for Newcastle Port said: “Due to the weather event, no shipping movements occurred yesterday [April 21st, 2015] and port operations also paused. No shipping movements have occurred today.”
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Chris Ford, a spokesman for terminal operator Newcastle Coal Infrastructure Group, said: “As soon as the port re-opens, operations will be back to normal.”
Natural disasters, particularly those relating to storms, can be a serious issue for ports and can also affect containerships docking into ports, as was the case at the Port of Sydney, when two containerships collided.
