Poor coordination gave Napoli scavengers opportunity
Around 50 containers washed ashore from the Napoli
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Thursday, 06, Nov 2008 12:30
Coordination between different public bodies in the wake of the beached container vessel MSC Napoli could have been improved, a report notes today.
The storm-damaged ship was prevented from becoming a major environmental disaster in January 2007 when the decision was made to beach it off Branscombe on the south Devon coast.
But 50 containers containing consumer goods including motorbikes were washed ashore and members of the public flocked to the beach to take them for themselves.
A report published today by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA) for the chairman of Devon's local inquiry into the beaching notes the decision not to set up a shoreline response centre.
It was only when private contractors arrived on the scene that fences were erected on the beach to keep the public out.
A shoreline response centre was not deemed necessary, the report says, because the responsibility for clean-up had been accepted by the Napoli's owners through their insurers.
This created an "apparent 'gap' in the procedures… to those on land", today's report concluded.
It adds: "The role that would have been assumed by the local authority setting up a shoreline response centre was missing and the links between the shoreline clean-up and the activities of the land coordinated organisations were not as obvious as they could have been."
Two county councils, two district councils, Devon's police and fire services, the landowners, the MCA and the Environment Agency were all involved in the land-based operation.
Today's report says coordination between maritime activities and those on land "could have been more smoothly implemented in the first days of the incident".
Despite these problems the report says the response to the Napoli incident went smoothly and has attracted international praise.