Gantries reach Kochi port after three-week wait

Kochi, Jul 16 (ANI): Four giant gantries onboard a Chinese vessel 'Zhenhua 10' anchored at Kochi on Friday after a three-week-long wait.

The 'Zhenhua 10' was due to dock at Vallarpadam Terminal but as the area lacked sufficient depth for the ship to drop anchor, it was finally diverted after three weeks to Kochi.

Dredging operations that were underway at Vallarpadam had stopped earlier due to the discovery of a hard chunk of land in the basin, causing the ship to be diverted. However, it will be moved back to the terminal once the dredging is completed.

"As far as the dredging activities are concerned, the channel dredging, the channel is itself about 12.5 kilometers, so that channel dredging has already been done. It is only the basin dredging that is required.

"Basin dredging, about half of the work has been done, but still deepening is required to enable the mother vessels to come inside. We believe it might take another few weeks to complete this," said N. Ramachandran, the Chairman of Cochin Port Trust

An area of at least five million cubic meters needs to be dredged out of the Vallarpadam basin for ships like the 'Zhenhua 10' to dock at the port.

The four Post Panamax quay cranes are capable of lifting two 20-foot containers and are meant for India's much-awaited first dedicated International Container Transshipment Terminal (ICTT).

The ICTT, which includes a 600-metre-long quay and a 40-hectare yard, is India's first trans-shipment terminal, in partnership with DP World and the Cochin Port Trust. (ANI)