Skip to main content

Drought-Hit Panama Canal To Restrict Access For A Year

The drought-hit Panama Canal will maintain restrictions on the passage of ships for one year, a measure that has already led to a marine traffic jam as boats line up to enter the waterway linking two oceans.

The canal is facing a shortage of rainwater needed to transfer ships through locks that function like water elevators, an engineering marvel that moves six percent of the world's maritime commerce up and over the continent between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

The canal's sub-administrator Ilya Espino, told AFP that unless heavy rains fall in the next three months, "we are looking at a period of one year" of restricted access.

That period will give clients "a year to plan" how to adapt, she said late Thursday.

Each ship moving through the canal requires 200 million liters of freshwater to move it through the locks, provided by two artificial lakes which also supply drinking water to half the country of about 4.2 million people.

However, Panama is facing a biting drought, made worse by the El Nino warming phenomenon, which has forced canal administrators to restrict the waterway to ships with a draft (water depth) of 13.11 meters (43 feet).

In 2022, an average of 40 ships crossed through the canal a day, a number which has now dropped to 32 to save water.

Traffic jam

The measures have caused a back-up of ships waiting to enter the 50-mile (80-kilometer) byway, which is mainly used by clients from the United States, China, and Japan.

On Thursday, some 130 boats were waiting, compared to around 90 usually in the queue.

Waiting times, usually between three and five days, have gone up to 19 days at times, although they currently stand at around 11 days.

Earlier this month canal operators said the restrictions were likely to result in a $200 million drop in earnings in 2024 compared to this year.

To pass through the canal, vessels can reserve a slot in advance, or try and buy one via an auction process. For those unable to secure a slot, there is a long wait.

"We easily handle a queue of 90 ships" waiting, but "130 or 140 ships cause us problems and delays," said Espino.

This week Panama President Laurentino Cortizo was forced to deny an assertion by his Colombian counterpart Gustavo Petro that the canal was closed.

Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, also referred this week to the "special" situation facing the waterway.

"We have a restriction in Panama as we have had on other occasions, but it is not true that the Panama Canal is closed," said Cortizo.

Adapt or die

The canal opened in 1914 after a monumental construction project through dense jungles and mountains, with workers suffering tropical diseases, intense heat and rain.

Since then, more than a million vessels have transited through the canal, saving them a lengthy journey around the tip of South America.

"The big disadvantage that the Panama Canal has as a maritime route is that we operate with freshwater, while others use seawater," canal administrator Ricaurte Vasquez told AFP earlier this month.

"We have to find other solutions to remain a relevant route for international trade. If we don't adapt, we are going to die."

Due to the draft restrictions, some merchant ships are forced to unload their containers and send the lighter vessel through the canal, while the goods traverse Panama by rail before being reloaded.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)



from NDTV News-World-news https://ift.tt/oLm2QYE

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

It's Official, Kamala Harris Is Democratic Candidate For US Election

US Vice President Kamala Harris effectively secured the Democratic party's presidential nomination Friday, confirming her remarkable rise to party standard bearer in November's showdown against Republican Donald Trump. Kamala Harris was the sole candidate on the ballot for a five-day electronic vote of nearly 4,000 party convention delegates. She will be officially crowned at a Chicago convention later this month. "I am honored to be the presumptive Democratic nominee for President of the United States," Kamala Harris, 59, said on a phone-in to a party celebration after securing enough votes by the second day of the marathon vote. In the two weeks since President Joe Biden ended his reelection bid, Kamala Harris has gained full control of the party. No other Democrats stepped forward to challenge her elevation to the top of the ticket, making her confirmation as the first Black and South Asian woman ever to secure a major party's nomination a formality. The a...

Muhammad Now The Most Popular Name For A Baby In Great Britain, Data Shows

427 years after William Shakespeare wrote it for the first time in the great "tragedy" Romeo & Juliet, England is asking the quintessential question - "What's in a name?" - And this time wondering what significance that question might hold in another 42.7 years. The Department of Statistics in the United Kingdom has revealed in its latest dataset that Muhammad is officially the most popular name for a newborn boy in England and Wales. More than 4,600 babies were registered with that name in 2023 - the highest for a boy. Muhammad was the second-most popular name in 2022 as well. Noah, once the most popular name in UK, came a distant second this year, according to the Office for National Statistics or ONS. But the staff at Great Britain's statistical office has in-fact been observing the trend for a while now. Jotting down the most popular names in the UK, besides other important statistics, it revealed that Muhammad has been among the top 10 names for...

Pak's ISI Fuelling Unrest In Bangladesh, Claims Sheikh Hasina's Son

Sheikh Hasina, who quit as prime minister and fled Bangladesh, will be back in the country as soon as democracy is restored, his son Sajeeb Wazed Joy said on Thursday and blamed Pakistan's intelligence agency, ISI, for fuelling the ongoing unrest in the country. In an interview with PTI, Mr Joy said that although 76-year-old Sheikh Hasina would return to Bangladesh, it has not yet been decided whether she will be back as a "retired or active" politician. He also asserted that the members of the Sheikh Mujib (Sheikh Mujibur Rahman) family will neither abandon its people nor leave the beleaguered Awami League in the lurch. He expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government for protecting his mother and appealed to India to help build international opinion and exert pressure to restore democracy in Bangladesh. "Yes, it is true that I had said she wouldn't return to Bangladesh. But a lot has changed in the last two days following continuous...