Nearly 70 shipping containers slipped off a vessel at the Port of Long Beach on Tuesday morning, leaving officials scrambling to determine what happened.
Port spokesperson Art Marroquin said the ship, the Mississippi, was berthed at Terminal G just before 9 a.m. when the containers mysteriously fell overboard into the water.
Marroquin added later in the day that the number of containers that fell into the water and on land was 67.
Marroquin and other port officials did not respond to questions about the ship. They confirmed, however, that no injuries were reported and all operations have been temporarily suspended as responders work to secure the containers.
A smaller clean-air barge connected to the Mississippi during the incident was damaged by several fallen containers.
The U.S. Coast Guard is in the preliminary stages of investigating what caused the incident. Officials from the Coast Guard did not respond to a call for more information.
Port officials have described the event as an “accident,” but have not provided additional details.
A 500-yard safety zone was secured around the Mississippi by the Coast Guard, which has produced safety broadcasts every hour alerting nearby ships of the potential safety hazards.
An online site dedicated to tracking ships says the Mississippi flies under a Portuguese flag and was last docked in China two weeks ago.
The incident happened only four days after the port was named the Best West Coast seaport in North America for a seventh straight year by the trade publication Asia Cargo News.
The port handles more than 9 million 20-foot containers per year from 2,000 vessels, moving one-fourth of all containers on the West Coast.
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