Concealment leads to disaster again! Just now, a COSCO SHIPPING cargo ship was in trouble!!!

Logistics is no small matter, but many people take chances and make misreports, omissions, or concealments when passing customs, ultimately harming others and themselves!

Recently, a giant ship owned by COSCO SHIPPING caught fire spontaneously at sea, which made people in the logistics circle feel heavy-hearted and also made sellers worry about the safety of their goods!

The cargo ship involved in the accident was named "COSCO Shipping Thames", with a length of 349 meters, a width of 46 meters, and a theoretical full load of 10,062 TEUs.

A raging fire suddenly broke out during the voyage from Port Klang to Nhava Sheva Port in India, and the container was burned through!

It is understood that this freighter currently serves the ESA route east of South America, calling at four major ports including Shanghai, Ningbo, Shenzhen and Hong Kong. There are as many as 15 freight companies sharing the warehouse, including COSCO, Maersk, CMA CGM, ZIM, APL, PIL and Wan Hai, covering a wide range!

The fire broke out in hold No. 7 of the ship. Preliminary investigation showed that the cargo container that spontaneously combusted after being unloaded was operated by Wan Hai. The declared product name was spare parts and accessories, the booked product name was furniture, the loading port was Nansha, and the unloading port was Navasiwa.

The initial inspection on site revealed that the cargo was lithium battery (the specific name will be determined after commodity inspection), which was suspected of concealing dangerous goods. Currently, the ship is docked at the idle dock of Colombo ECT, and the right hatch of BAY54 remains open. Mechanical forced ventilation has been carried out on the NO.7 cargo hold. The crew was arranged to go down to the hold to measure oxygen and explosion. After confirming safety, the temperature of the cargo boxes was checked one by one.

The port staff will conduct commodity inspection on the unloaded containers, confirm the names of the goods one by one, and determine whether there is any concealment of dangerous goods in the evidence collection, and will claim compensation from the relevant parties. Sellers who have sent this cargo ship should note that the goods are likely to be delayed continuously!

Currently, Guangzhou Nansha Port has issued a warning against the concealment of dangerous goods: Once discovered, all cooperation will be terminated and all losses will be compensated! It is expected that more ports will report the problem of concealing dangerous goods!

The following is the notification email for this incident:

Concealing the authenticity of lithium batteries has always been a taboo in the cross-border logistics circle. Many freight forwarders and cargo owners have suffered as a result. We have also reported on accidents involving spontaneous combustion of lithium batteries before!

In August last year, an Airbus A330 aircraft caught fire in Terminal T3 of the Capital Airport, and thick smoke filled the scene!

According to the pictures, the aircraft head was completely burned after the fire, and it is feared that it will no longer be able to be used commercially. It is understood that the A330 aircraft is priced at US$180 million, equivalent to about RMB 1.3 billion, which is more expensive than a Boeing 747!

After the accident, the three major cargo terminals, Air China, Hongyuan and BGS, immediately issued a notice: they would not accept any lithium battery cargo!

There are more than just these two accidents caused by lithium batteries. Early last year, a wooden cargo pallet measuring approximately 2 meters by 2 meters suddenly caught fire on the apron opposite Gate 208 of the Midfield Concourse of Hong Kong International Airport. The cause was the spontaneous combustion of lithium batteries!

After the accident, the airline has added the shipper *** Electronics (Shenzhen) Co., Ltd. to the blacklist and will no longer accept any cargo from this shipper.

We have said many times that lithium is the most active metal in the world. Due to its extremely active chemical properties, when lithium metal is exposed to the air, it will produce a violent oxidation reaction with oxygen, so it is easy to cause explosions, combustion and other phenomena.  

Lithium batteries have always been a very strict priority both domestically and abroad.

Amazon has also issued regulations related to lithium batteries:

Starting January 1, 2020, battery manufacturers and distributors must provide a lithium battery test summary in accordance with the United Nations standard UN 38.3. When selling with FBA, sellers are responsible for obtaining this test summary for any ASIN they sell, otherwise Amazon will temporarily ban the account from selling products.

The reason why all parties are increasingly strict in controlling lithium batteries is because the instability of lithium batteries is too high! I hope that in the future, both freight forwarders and cargo owners will take logistics safety to heart! As mentioned in the opening topic, we must do our best to prevent misreporting, underreporting, and concealing the scene, otherwise it will harm others and ourselves!