Canada's roads are cut off due to floods, how should the cargoes go?

 

Two days of torrential rains caused floods and landslides in many places in Western Canada in BC Province (the province where Vancouver is located). Affected by this, the eastbound traffic in southern BC, including the main railway and several expressways out of the province, have been forced to close. At present, most of the southern part of BC has temporarily suspended land transportation with other provinces. The provincial government has declared a state of emergency in the province. Federal troops are stationed today to assist in disaster relief and infrastructure restoration. However, due to the large area affected by the disaster and the complex terrain of the disaster area, it is optimistically estimated that it will take at least 2-3 weeks to restore the traffic.

The sudden interruption of land transportation has made the previously congested Port of Vancouver even worse. Long-distance trucks and railways were forced to stop transportation indefinitely, which reignited a vicious chain reaction: warehouses burst and could not receive goods, the proposed heavy containers could not be dismantled, and the truck chassis were largely occupied and new heavy containers could not be picked up. Due to the backlog of heavy containers, the yard is unable to unload and turn over normally, and even unable to collect the empty containers that are returned. As of today, MSC, Evergreen, and YangMing are unable to promise and provide dry counter return addresses. As a result, no truck fleet in the market is willing to undertake these three businesses. In the future, it is expected that more other shipowners will join the lines of being unable to collect empty containers.

With the advent of severe winter weather, the situation of container transshipment in Eastern Canada may be even worse in the future. Our company will do our best to assist in follow-up and provide feasible and economical alternatives in a timely manner, but we will not bear all the responsibilities and expenses beyond the control. At the same time, please help with the following matters:

1. Please do not arrange for Vancouver dismantling and transshipment of Canadian cargo; For full container railway transshipment, please choose the owner of the Prince Rupert unloading ship in northern BC as much as possible.

2. For the containers that have arrived or will arrive at the port, please clarify and confirm with relevant parties in advance the detention, demurrage fees, overdue storage, chassis occupation and other additional costs, and there will be a clear bearer.