Chinese authorities are halting some ship traffic in and out of epidemic-stricken inland port of Wuhan, Chinese domestic shipping sources said.
The apparent restrictions come as central authorities impose a general quarantine on Wuhan, shutting down airline, train and bus terminals.
No information was immediately available on any formal restrictions on ship traffic. But observers pointed to several vessels on regular liner services that have anchored in the Yangtze River on the way in or out of the Hubei provincial capital.
Wuhan is the point of origin of most known cases of the deadly flu-like coronavirus epidemic. This week Chinese authorities took measures to contain the disease there, shutting down passenger traffic near the peak of the busy lunar New Year holiday travel season, quarantining many symptomatic travellers when they arrived at other Chinese cities from Wuhan, and by many accounts effectively shutting in the city of 11 million.
The industrial city at the junction of the Yangtze and Han Rivers is a busy port for river shipping and also receives some international traffic.
Steamship Mutual and UK P&I Club have both warned their members to monitor the developing effects of the coronavirus epidemic.
But as TradeWinds reported earlier Thursday, Steamship Mutual's Hong Kong chief executive, Rohan Bray, said there was "no reason to consider any port unsafe because of the Wuhan virus, and the scale of any epidemic would have to escalate substantially before owners could consider legitimately refusing to call at scheduled or ordered ports on account of the safety of the crew”.
Chinese-flag domestic traffic is less transparent to outside observation, but all Wuhan shipping traffic readily traceable by AIS data appears to have anchored downriver from the city Wednesday or Thursday, whether the ships were departing or approaching.
Among others idled is a new direct Japan-Wuhan feedermax venture.
AIS data from VesselsValue confirms that the 560-teu Hua Hang Han Ya 1 (built 2019) interrupted its regular liner service between Yokohama and Wuhan early on Thursday morning, soon after departing a Wuhan terminal.
TradeWinds reported last year that local government controlled Wuhan Newport Construction Investment and Development Group (Wuhan XG) had begun the direct service to make the inland industrial centre less dependent on upriver feedering services.
Wuhan XG is part of Central China Logistics Corp.
Small gas carriers that serve the city have also anchored downriver.
Dalian Surui Shipping's 3,500-cbm Su Rui 139 (built 1995) stopped several hours short of Wuhan Tuesday morning. Another Wuhan-bound LPG carrier, the 3,500-cbm Song Tai Shan 16 (built 1991), reached the same point in the Yangtze Wednesday morning and anchored near Su Rui 139.
Representatives of the tanker and containership owners could not be reached on Thursday, the eve of the main Lunar New Year celebration.
