Unloading Zim Kingston continues after small fire aboard the ship

A small fire aboard the beleaguered container ship Zim Kingston had little impact on the unloading of damaged containers at Duke Point in Nanaimo, says a port official.

Ian Marr, chief executive of the Nanaimo Port Authority, said crews were back to work unloading the containers two hours after the fire broke out Tuesday afternoon.

It’s believed to have been caused by sparks igniting exposed insulation inside one of the damaged containers.

“They’re back at it and it’s going very well,” said Marr, noting 42 of the 58 damaged containers have been taken off the ship.

The 260-metre-long vessel, which sat for weeks off Victoria after losing 109 containers off the west coast of Vancouver Island in heavy seas and then dealt with a fire that damaged several of its containers, has been moored at Duke Point since Dec. 11.

Marr said the process is slow — some days they manage to get one container off the ship and other days they manage eight.

“It’s very tricky — you have to survey each one to make sure that when you take that one out, another 20 are not going to collapse,” he said.

It’s expected the ship will remain in Nanaimo until the end of December.

Containers being off-loaded are examined and re-sealed, then secured before being lowered onto shore, where an environmental response team determines whether the contents should be recycled or packed into a new container.

Marr said material that cannot be reused or recycled is being disposed of on the Lower Mainland.

Of the 109 containers the ship lost off the west coast of Vancouver Island, just four were recovered.

Marr said the loading and unloading of the Zim Kingston has been a lot of work, but highlights what Nanaimo’s port is capable of.

“It shows everybody that we can handle a container ship and move goods on and off the Island, which is part of the expansion project we are doing now,” he said.

Duke Point is poised for expansion and to be able to handle larger vessels, thanks to $100 million in public and private funding to upgrade the terminal over the next two years.