The Panama Canal is operating normally and was not affected by the sinking of a Venezuelan-flagged cargo ship that collided with another vessel at the Caribbean entrance to the interoceanic waterway, administrators said Monday.
Panama Canal operating "normally" after collision Panama City, Jan 25 (EFE).- The Panama Canal is operating normally and was not affected by the sinking of a Venezuelan-flagged cargo ship that collided with another vessel at the Caribbean entrance to the interoceanic waterway, administrators said Monday. "The sinking of this vessel is not affecting the operations or traffic in the aquatic waterway," said the Panama Canal Authority, or ACP, in an official statement. The sinking of the VFM Alita, which was not carrying cargo at the time of the accident since it was at anchor awaiting scrapping, took place a week ago in the "external anchorage in the Atlantic," the Panama Maritime Authority said over the weekend, although the ACP made no comment on the matter until Monday. The VFM Alita, 106 meters (about 348 feet) long and with a draft of 5.5 meters (18 feet), was built in 1986 and collided with another vessel and suffered a hull breach. The crew, the size of which is not precisely known, abandoned ship before it sank and nobody was injured in the incident. "The vessel is lying on the sea bottom, resting on its port (left) side," the ACP said. "For the security of this vessel and of the traffic around it, the area has been marked by two spherical yellow buoys, with their respective night signals." The ACP said that ships transiting the Canal should exercise caution and "avoid the marked area."
