The Transportation Safety Board plans to release a report this week stemming from its investigation of the Zim Kingston vessel, which lost 109 containers off Vancouver Island’s west coast and then caught in fire near Victoria in October 2021.
The board announced Monday it plans to hold a news conference Wednesday in Vancouver to release its report.
The incident made international headlines as government agencies scrambled to find and recover containers filled with goods. Local environmental organizations were hired to help clean up debris spread over pristine beaches on the north end of the island.
Only four containers were recovered, coming to shore on the west and north of the island. Another 105 containers were never found.
The Zim Kingston had left Busan, South Korea, bound for the Deltaport container terminal in Delta. The vessel was loaded with 30,552 tons of cargo, including containers with dangerous goods, such as thiourea dioxide and xanthates, the safety board said in a statement.
While waiting on Oct. 21 for its scheduled arrival time, it moved in a set pattern near Perouse Bank, off Vancouver Island’s west coast. A storm came up, with winds that reached 40 knots and swells of about five metres.
“Very late in the day, as the vessel was heading north and the wind and waves coming from the southwest, the vessel rolled heavily. As a result, 109 containers fell overboard and others were damaged,” the board said.
Everything from refrigerators to plastic toys washed up. Large piles of debris were collected and carried out of remote areas by helicopters.
After losing its cargo, the ship arrived at Constance Bank off Victoria’s waterfront. The public headed to Dallas Road on Oct. 23 to see the vessel and saw smoke billowing from the 260-metre-long vessel, sparking new concerns about the contents remaining on board.
The ship’s crew tried to contain the fire. Three firefighting tugs and a salvage contractor were brought in to help put it out.
A total of 16 crew members were evacuated from the vessel, while five crew members, including the master, remained on board. The fire was eventually contained and extinguished on Oct. 28, the safety board said.
“A subsequent inspection revealed that the forward hatch cover of the vessel near Bay 14 was deformed, several containers onboard were damaged due to the failure of securing arrangements, and others were damaged by the fire that followed.”
In November of that year, the safety board sent a team of investigators to Victoria to look into what happened.
After the fire was extinguished, Zim Kingston was moved to the Port of Nanaimo where containers were unloaded.
Kathy Fox, TSB chair, Yoan Marier, TSB board member, and Étienne Séguin-Bertrand, a senior investigator with TSB’s marine division, will speak at the Wednesday news conference.
The news conference is being broadcast on the safety board’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/TSBCanada.
