The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Port Trust puts damage at Rs. 11.6 crores

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jan 01, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Port Trust puts damage at Rs. 11.6 crores

By Our Staff Reporter

CHENNAI, DEC. 31. The Chennai Port Trust has placed the damage to its equipment and facilities in Sunday's tsunami at Rs.11.60 crores.

Apart from the expenditure on replacing and carrying out the repairs, the port needs to spend Rs. 5 crores on dredging about five-lakh cubic metres. The dredging has been necessitated as the monstrous waves that had several ships colliding against each other also brought in tonnes of sediment.

Hydro-geological survey

A hydro-geological survey by the National Institute of Ocean Technology has identified the areas that require dredging. While the final report of the survey is expected on Saturday, the Chennai Port Trust has finished assessing the damage, K. Suresh, chairman of the Port Trust said today. He was seeing off a container vessel of TCI Seaways Limited with relief materials bound for Port Blair.

The dredging would be a forerunner to the capital dredging that the port planned to conduct on 15-lakh cubic metres. The capital dredging, expected to cost Rs.10 crores for deepening the waterfront, would help the port attract larger cargo vessels, especially the Suez Max type oil carriers. "The Indian Oil Corporation was planning to bring in one such vessel with a capacity of 1.80 lakh tonnes," Mr. Suresh said.

Out of 141 containers on board the vessel, TCI XPS, to Port Blair 13 contained relief materials, including medicines, clothes, blankets and plastic cans containing fresh water. "We are taking the containers, some of which also have material for use by defence personnel engaged in the relief operations there, free of cost," said S. Jayaraman, captain of the vessel. The rest of the containers contain commercial cargo, including vegetables, water, pulses, cement and iron. The vessel, with a capacity to ship 180 containers, is equipped with cranes that can handle up to 40 tonnes.

TCI XPS, according to Capt. Jayaraman, was berthed at the West Quay of the Chennai port on Sunday when the tsunami struck. "Every captain tried his best to keep his vessel safe that day," he said, pointing out that TCI XPS did not suffer even a scratch.

Noting that the impact on vessels in mid-sea during tsunamis is almost nil, he said, "The speed increased when we were sailing to Chennai. Since the vessel is fitted with a powerful engine, the speed was not noticed immediately ... we came here on December 25."

Another ship to

Port Blair

The Managing Director of TCI Seaways, R.U. Singh, said TCI Lakshmi, another vessel carrying relief material, including consignments sent by the Food Corporation of India, today sailed for Port Blair from Vishakapatnam. Jagdish Narayan Rao, Deputy Director, Shipping of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands administration, said a flight carrying relief material also left for Port Blair today from Chennai.

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Tamil Nadu

News Update

Stories in this Section