Low tides are making it difficult for the three vessels that sank at the Beira fishing port during the passage of tropical cyclone Eloise on 23 January to reforest. The director of the port, António Remédio, who told our newspaper yesterday, stressed that as a result of the tides divers face immense difficulties in mooring the vessels in question.
“The divers don’t even want to know about the presence of any movement in that space, including from the Oporto’s own direction. But everything indicates that, from today (yesterday), the tide will be able to improve and make the operations possible”, our source pointed out.
This is a 60-metre-long ship and two 42 metres long which, on 23 January, docked in that area in the absence of the local authorities and, following strong winds from the storm, 120 kilometres per hour and gusts of up to 150 kilometres per hour, suffered damage which even damaged part of the port’s infrastructure.
To this end, two robust cranes and a fire-fighting vehicle have been pre-positioned in that complex since last Wednesday for an operation described by the maritime authorities as rather delicate, with no forecast of duration.
At the Beira fishing port there is an unused movement of different entities, including the National Public Salvation Service, technicians from the Maritime Administration, the National Institute of Hydrography and Navigation, the Lake and River Police, among others.
The vessels, which had called at the city of Beira for fishing licences, were pre-positioned in the franchise area, but the pilots decided unilaterally to move to the fishing port, supposedly for safety reasons due to the cyclone Eloise.
However, the incident caused no human casualties but material damage to the port infrastructure, with effects on the berthing of other vessels.
However, the Beira fishing port, which has the berthing capacity of 16 boats at the same time, continues to operate normally, according to assurances given to this effect by Director António Remédio.
