At the end of nearly 20 years of waiting, a historic moment occurred: San Fernando arrived with 2000 containers at Vizhinjam Seaport today.
The Vizhinjam port is being designed primarily to cater to the transshipment and gateway container business, with the provision of a cruise terminal.
“The Vizhinjam Port is an ambitious step forward toward prosperity. Located in Vizhinjam, Kerala, APSEZ is developing this deep-sea water port as India’s first Mega Transshipment Container Terminal.
The world-class, future-ready port is the only transshipment hub in the Indian subcontinent, closest to the international shipping routes, and is centrally located on the Indian coastline. It has a Natural draft of 20-24 m & minimal littoral drift”.
The first mothership arrived at Vizhinjam International Port to fulfill development dreams. The container ship San Fernando docked around 9 am. The ship was received with a water salute. The residents welcomed the ship with flagpoles and waved the national flag.
The captain of the harbor took control of the mothership. Around 7:30 in the morning, the ship had left the outer area of Vizhinjam port. The vessel reached Vizhinjam with tugboats that went to the outer area to receive the ship. Top officials of the port were on board the tug.
Minister VN Vasavan did berthing with the flag off. The containers on the ship will start unloading by noon. The containers unloaded from the ship with the help of a crane are loaded into the Inter Transit Vehicle (ITV) and transferred to the yards. The port has a yard to unload seven thousand containers at a time. There are 31 cranes to unload and load the container onto the ship. The ship’s official reception and port trial run will take place tomorrow. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan will inaugurate at 10 am. Union Minister Sarbananda Sonowal will attend the historic event, that is going to mark developments in Kerala and southern India. After unloading the container, the vessel will return to San Fernando on Friday evening. Feeder vessels will start arriving Saturday onwards.
Vizhinjam Seaport MD Divya S Iyer IAS, earlier said that Vizhinjam International Port is a gift of nature to Kerala.
