A nation-wide strike has been announced for today in Italian ports following a fatal accident at the Port of San Giorgio di Nogaro. The strike will last for one hour after the end of each shift across Italian ports, the country’s labor union federation Filt Cgil and Uiltrasporti union said. The move is being announced after a 62-year-old worker, an employee of a shipping agency, lost his life due to injuries sustained in a forklift accident. Based on the initial estimates, 1,796 million tons of butane gas had leaked.
“As liquefied butane has a high evaporation rate, MPA has assessed that any leaked butane would have been carried southward away from mainland Singapore, where most of it would have rapidly dissipated to below flammable levels within an hour and pose no risk to shipping,” the port authority commented.
The Greek-flagged Astro Saturn is reported to have suffered damages to its port anchor and bow
The 120,324 cbm ship, built in 2003, belongs to Pantheon Tanker’s fleet, according to VesselsValue data. It was chartered by Jellicoe Tankers for one year in May 2017. The strike action is being pursued as a means of urging the relevant authorities to upgrade workplace security for maritime labor force and comes in the wake of a string of fatalities. The unions called for an urgent meeting with the Labour Minister Giuliano Poletti in order to set up a concrete action plan to improve workplace safety.
