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Arturo Tux Vasquez, CEO - Port of Belize
"It's quite significant really because it puts the pier out of commission and obviously we are still in the stage of assessing everything and the priority for us right now is to make sure that we get this - we thought that it was only one of the beams but apparently it damage all 3, so instead of having to replace one, we are looking to having to replace 3 now. The engineer is currently looking at it and trying to put all the plans in place, but for us even to replace one beam, we would have had to close the pier off, so initially we thought about 4 days, but I think now we are realistically looking about 6 days."

Jules Vasquez
"Now, that has a huge and consequential effect that the major commercial port in the country will be closed for 6 days. Will ships have to turned back or reroute around Belize?"

Arturo Tux Vasquez, CEO - Port of Belize
"We are talking to the agents right now and we are also advising all the agents what is the situation is. Of course they are aware now of what has happen. We can't accommodate anything at the pier head. We won't do that. I don't think it's pretty safe to do that and we have decided not to do that. So we should be able to work with ships that have their own crane onboard and we are planning right now to see if we can get those ships to offload onto barges that would then bring the containers into the low berth area. That I understand it had been done before and that's the way we will accommodate. The shipping agents of course can make their own decision as well, some of them are thinking of perhaps turning back and missing one ship, one line coming in and perhaps just delaying their shipment by another few days or so. It is something for everybody to think about."

Jules Vasquez
"Is there any estimate right now how much all of this would cost?"

Arturo Tux Vasquez, CEO - Port of Belize
"If we include loss of business and everything - I don't know. It could very well be over $200,000 - $300,000 I would think. These beams are pretty expensive - $40,000 - $50,000 each, you are looking at that replacing them. I think cost would have to be based on how much it affects the business itself."

So how did the barge end up under the port bridge? Well, that is the subject of an investigation by the Port Authority but one theory is that the tug operator may have lost control of the barge and it drifted under the bridge. The barge was headed for the low berthing dock which is a few hundred feet away from the main pier.

The first ship that is due right about now is the Seaboard, which will has its own crane and likely be offloaded unto barges as Vasquez indicated.