Another berth at Karachi Port caved in early Saturday due to the current spell of torrential monsoon rain, which lashed the city and other coastal areas of the province. Berth number 10, which is also located at East Wharves (EW), caved in at around 4am due to the continuos downpour during the whole night, sources in the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) told Business Recorder.
"As a result of heavy downpour berth number 10 which had already phased out also caved in after berth number 14 which faced the same fate on late Thursday night," they added.
Sources said a scrap ship, Throdi, with flag of Malta was anchored at the damaged berth when the incident took place but the ship remained safe and was later shifted to berth number 1. "The incident did not affect the scrap Maltese vessel and no loss of human life was reported," they said.
Sources said KPT had already tendered the Rs 5.5 billion project to a British firm M/s Scot and Wilson, UK and planned to reconstruct its berths from 1 to 17 as a long-term project to develop a multi-purpose bulk cargo terminal at EW. "We have Scot and Wilson from UK as consultants on the reconstruction project as KPT is planning to build a bulk cargo terminal at East Wharves for catering to the latest port and shipping related demands," said the sources.
They said tendering process for the reconstruction project was on the advanced stages and the Trust had set September 25 (this year) as a startup deadline.
When asked about the cost of damage the Trust had to face due to this natural disaster, sources said, "We have called our consultants who will conduct an assessment of the losses but nothing can be said about the loss at this stage".
On the query that whether the incidents were likely to disturb traffic activity at the port, they said: "No, this can not happen because we have 50 to 60 percent occupancy reserves at port which would not let any disturbance to the port activity".
It may be recalled that on Thursday night berth number 14 and 15 had received complete and partial damages respectively after being hard hit by the first spell of heavy monsoon rain.
KPT, however, under its reconstruction plan at the East Wharves is likely to start work at the rain-affected berths on priority basis after getting a green signal from its consultants who are undertaking an assessment of the cost and level of damage to the affected area, sources said.