Recovery crews summon 'The Beast' to help lift collapsed crane at Vancouver port
Floating cranes brought in to lift structure off container ship after incident Monday
A large crane boom that collapsed onto a loaded container ship at the Port of Vancouver will need two huge floating cranes to remove it from where it fell Monday.
A floating crane known as "The Beast," which has a capacity of 900 tons (816 tonnes), was brought in Monday and a 600-ton (544-tonne) capacity crane arrived Tuesday for the recovery operation, said Louanne Wong, director of communications with Global Container Terminals Vanterm.
Early Monday the container ship Ever Summit struck a gantry crane while berthing and both the vessel and crane sustained damage, according to the Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the incident.
The crane collapsed across the ship's containers. Wong says Global Container Terminals Vanterm has confirmed that none of the damaged containers contain hazardous cargo.
She says engineering and maintenance teams along with external engineering contractors have been working to gain an understanding of the incident and to activate a recovery plan.
Vessel operations are still on hold at the Vanterm terminal, but Wong says rail and truck-gate operations are operating.