Over 1,900 shipping containers fell off of a Japanese-flagged cargo ship in the waters near Hawaii. The ship, named One Apus, was en route from Yantian, China, to Long Beach, California, when it encountered rough weather in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
The ship was battered with gale-force winds and large swells, which knocked the containers into the water. Officials said that some of the containers were filled with "dangerous goods." The company that owns the ship said that 54 containers were filled with fireworks, eight held batteries, and two contained liquid ethanol. The contents of the other cargo containers were not released.
The ship is currently on its way to Kobe, Japan, where officials will remove the remaining containers and conduct a full audit to determine exactly how many containers are missing and if any of the containers on the ship were damaged.
A photo taken by a crew member showed the shipping containers strewn about after the storm.
The U.S. Coast Guard issued an advisory for other vessels to be on the lookout for the containers. While they could scratch and cause minor damage to large cargo ships, they could cause a fatal accident if a smaller vessel such as a fishing boat or sailboat were to collide with them.
Officials have not been able to locate the cargo containers and warned they could be spread out across a wide swath of the Pacific Ocean.
“We’re not really sure of the area of the shipping containers or how widespread it is,” said Petty Officer 3rd Class Ryan Fisher, a spokesman for Coast Guard District 14 in Honolulu. “We know that it was coming from China on its way to California, but that’s all the information we have at this time.”
Photo: Getty Images