The Lyttelton Port Company has admitted work was still in progress when stacks of 52 empty containers blew over in August, and it has launched two investigations into the incident.
The company initially told Stuff all work at the port was suspended at the time due to wind, and no personnel were near the container stacks that toppled, but workers claimed this was untrue.
After Stuff put those claims to LPC and requested access to port webcam video footage, a company spokesman confirmed the footage, previously unseen by communications personnel, showed the earlier information provided was “unintentionally incorrect.”
He said work was suspended after the blow-overs, not before, and the incident was now under investigation as a significant safety event. “This is obviously not a situation that LPC are in any way happy with.”
A second enquiry involving an independent investigator will look into internal notification processes and why the incident was not investigated earlier.
The spokesman said a wind gust was estimated to have caused the stacks to collapse at 5.30pm on August 5, but refused to release video footage to Stuff on the grounds that the matter was under investigation.
“The short clip taken at the time was not timestamped, and our CCTV system only stores footage for a month, so we are unable to obtain the original timestamp.”
LPC said while there were no straddles amongst the blocks of containers when the blow-over occurred, a truck was about seven metres away, and the driver who had left the cab was in a shelter 25m from the edge of the stack.
In late July a single container blown off a stack at LPC’s Woolston depot bounced over the boundary fence onto the verge in Chapman’s Rd, and safety concerns have also been raised about the height of stacks in another nearby container storage yard above a walkway along the Ōpāwaho Heathcote River.
Port unions have called for a national code of practice for container stacks at ports and freight depots, especially with the more extreme weather caused by climate change, and WorkSafe expects to publish guidelines early next year.
Maritime Union national secretary Craig Harrison said the vulnerability of empty containers in high winds was well known. “I would say that many operators currently have inadequate controls in place.”
ContainerCo has about 25,000 containers at a dozen depots around the country and managing director Ken Harris said he was unaware of anyone ever being injured by a dislodged container.
Common practice was to stop work when wind speeds exceeded 35 knots (65kph), and it was well known that containers stacked in tiered blocks were much more stable than isolated containers, or those in single rows with spaces between them.
“The vulnerability is not to do with container height, in the empty container industry, the key is to have deep and wide stacks … deep, wide and high is good.”
Harris, who has managed ports in Wellington, Nelson and Gisborne, has never known containers to be dislodged in earthquakes, including in his time working in Japan after a major earthquake.
He said better wind forecasting was needed, and the freak tornado that hit several South Auckland freight depots without warning, killing a mechanic working on machinery, was an example of the risks associated with extreme weather events.