Cargo ship stuck on reef near Southern Long Caye

Earlier today, a cargo vessel, Westerhaven, heading south to Guatemala was trapped when it ran into a shallow area at sea. And late this evening, the vessel’s crew was safely brought to land. A full scale investigation is underway to determine possible damages to the reef system.

The incident occurred at coordinates 17.05.1 North, 87.59.4 West or just east of Southern Long Caye and about fifteen miles south of English Caye. The ship had onboard fifteen crew members, mainly Philippinos. It is normally chartered by Sea Borne Marines of Houston Texas to take general merchandise to various countries and on this trip, and had left Belize City on Tuesday on the way to Guatemala with empty containers but this morning it ran into trouble. On Thursday, the vessel’s owners from Ryder Shipping of the Netherlands will arrive in Belize to make assessments of the damage. Chief Environmental Officer, Martin Alegria, says the Department of Environment is working along with the Fisheries Department and Belize Port Authority in their investigations.

Voice of Martin Alegria, Chief Environmental Officer
“From our angle, the environmental implications of taking out that ship from where it is to minimize the damage on the environment, in this case, the Barrier Reef on the corals and demarcate the area that this happened, in terms of GPS readings etcetera. In short, what we do is we do two things: we do preliminary assessment of what the situation is to recommend how to take it out from the ground area. Secondly, what we do thereafter is an environmental assessment of the damage that has been caused, along with Fisheries in this case to valuate the damage to the environment; in this case, coral formation, noh, if that’s the case and make a valuation of what it is in order to bill a case for the charging of these vessels that run aground. The case though, if we do develop a case and carry it to court is strengthened when Port Authority, in this case, would also do their investigations during the site visits we both do or do jointly.”