When container stacks collapse during transit, the threat is huge for the safety of the entire ship and of the environment. Substantial financial losses can appear and employees can end up with very serious injuries. Because of the size of shipping containers, the risk of death is very high.
With the falling of stacks of containers, it is important to understand causation. This is what prevents incidents. With car accidents, you do not have to deal with much in most cases. You would rarely actually need a car accident lawyer in Rochester NY. When containers fall, it is a certainty that lawyers will get involved since cases are rarely simple.
Heavy Weather
Fortunately, thanks to advanced voyage planning technology, it is much easier to plan routes so that weather does not have a bad effect on the shipment. However, this does not mean that heavy weather cannot cause shipping container collapses. For instance, parametric rolling is when spontaneous large rolling motions happen as the ship is faced with stern or head seas.
Size
A big vessel will move differently when on the sea than the smaller vessels. As an example, an incident in China in 1998 showed that parametric rolling was much more common when there were large box ships present with larger bow flares. Whenever container stacks and ships start to roll, container stacks are affected by huge forces. It is quite common to see container stacks falling in this case.
Ship Stowage
On-board weight distribution needs to be proper. To do this, GM (metacentric height) is calculated. Without going too deep into details, the idea is that container stacks need to be arranged in such a way that weight is equally distributed along the ship. When this does not happen, it is quite common to see containers fall. Fortunately, there is advanced software used to do most of this crucial job. However, this is only possible with correct software development, proper human interaction, human decisions, and correct data entries.
Improper Packing And Securement Of Containers
There is a Container Securing Manual that has to be followed. In addition, every single company might have extra stowage guidelines in place when referring to problematic cargo. Container carriers have to rely on freight forwarders, shippers, and several sub-contractors when it comes to adequately securing and packing cargo. With so many involved, it is way too common to see errors.
Every container is designed with the purpose of properly containing specific cargo. When exposed to too much weight, like due to excessive loading, the container can end up with structural failure. Also, container shells can be affected by wear and tear while several operations can weaken the structure. Unfortunately, with stacks, whenever one container fails, it is a certainty that the rest are going to also fail.
Cargo weight needs to be declared by shippers. Weight mis-declaration is a very big problem in the industry and can make the work of cargo stowage planners very difficult. When numbers are inaccurate, container stack integrity is instantly jeopardized. The same goes when companies deliberately declare different numbers than what is real.