"The incident occurred approximately 29 nautical miles
northeast of Port St. Johns while the vessel was enroute from Colombo to New
York. In light of the container loss, a navigation warning has been issued to
all vessels operating in the affected area,” SAMSA said in a statement.
The MSC Antonio safely arrived in the port of Cape Town on
August 30, where it would undergo a comprehensive assessment and necessary
repairs.
The incident with the MSC Antonio follows the loss of 99
containers from the CMA CGM Belem in adverse weather while sailing off the
coast of Richards Bay in South Africa on Thursday August 16.
The 13,000 teu CMA CGM Belem sought safe habour in the Port
of Ngqurha following the incident and has since been making load adjustments.
On Friday last week, the ship's insurer representatives in
South Africa launched a five hour aerial surveillance and search for the
vessel's lost containers after several sightings of floating containers along
the Wild Coast area of the Eastern Cape province were reported to the
authorities.
SAMSA said around 20 containers were spotted but it could
not be confirmed that they belonged to the CMA CGM Belem.
The incident with the CMA CGM Belem came just a month
after the CMA CGM Benjamin Franklin lost 44 containers overboard off the coast
of South Africa while sailing round the Cape of Good Hope.
All
three vessels in recent incidents were on voyages between Asia and Europe and
transiting the Cape of Good Hope due to the security situation in the Red Sea.
Container ships would normally transit the Red Sea and Suez
Canal between Asia and Europe. However, the vast majority have diverted to
sailing via the Cape of Good Hope to avoid attacks on shipping in the Red
Sea by the Houthis. This has exposed vessels that would not normally transit
the African cape to severe winter storms in the region.
