Although the final report on the Hyundai Fortune fire has not yet been published, it is believed that the fire was caused by dangerous goods – and this was not even the last in a long line of such disasters at sea arising from such cargoes, says ICHCA.

The whole concept of the container in the transportation chain is “don’t open it, don’t look inside, just move it on”, says ICHCA. As far as packaged dangerous goods are concerned, the declaration or the marking can be wrong, or it can just not be declared in the first place. The question of what is in the container is, therefore, a big issue.

While the IMO’s International Maritime Dangerous Goods Code was first published in 1965, and it has had mandatory status for the past four years, the part dealing with shoreside training – of the people responsible for classification, packaging, declaration, documentation and container stuffing and marking – is only recommendatory.

ICHCA has strongly supported the UK delegation which proposed in the relevant IMO subcommittee making such training mandatory, as such a move would assist the many other international initiatives to improve dangerous goods movements by container, it says.

Safe lashing is another issue in which ICHCA has been taking a lead. It says the lashing process on board containerships is a major cause of injury among dock workers. A new international standard for the safe lashing of deck containers is being finalised for final adoption by the IMO during 2009.

This will result in lashing being taken into account at the design stage of containerships and also provide a standard to aim for on existing ships.

A review of the IMO’s Timber Deck Cargo Code is another area in which ICHCA is participating – this issue having been underlined by the Ice Princess very recently.