Radiation threat to Tokyo Bay ports

Damian Brett

Closure of Tokyo and Yokohama would have major effect of container shipping
Japan’s nuclear power station crisis could have a major impact on container shipping, if the threat of radiation forces the closure of ports in the Tokyo Bay area.

Analyst AXS Alphaliner said that so far damage from the earthquake and subsequent tsunami was having a slight impact on Japan’s container supply chain.

But it warned that if the risk of nuclear radiation from the Fukushima power plant escalated it would cause the closure of the ports in Tokyo Bay, Tokyo and Yokohama, which handled 7.5 million teu in 2010, or 38% of Japanese container throughput.

Currently, ships are avoiding an exclusion zone of 30km around the Fukushima plant, and seven container ports have been damaged.

“The direct impact of the Japanese crisis from the earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent damage of the nuclear plants at Fukushima, will reverberate through the container shipping sector in the coming months,” said the analyst.

“Current assessment of the situation in Japan has been sketchy and often conflicting, with news agencies mostly overstating the impact on the shipping sector.

“Of the ports that suffered serious damage as a result of the disaster, only seven handle container cargo – Sendai, Hachinohe, Hitachinaka, Onahama, Kashima, Ofunato and Ishinomaki – and these ports only handled 1.3% of the total Japanese container throughput in 2010.

“The largest among them – Sendai – handled only 155,611teu last year.”

The death toll from the earthquake and tsunami has now risen to more than 9,400, and nearly 15,000 people are listed as missing.

Engineers have been trying to cool Fukushima’s reactors and spent fuel rods to avoid a major release of radiation, after power to the cooling systems was knocked out by the earthquake and tsunami.

But work at the plant was yesterday halted again, after black smoke was seen rising from reactor three.

Courtesy: www.ifw-net.com