Around 1:40 GMT on 9 August 2024, it exploded.  “It” is a container purported to be filled with hazardous goods on a ship named YM Mobility docked at the busy Ningbo-Zhoushan port in China. The ship sails under a Liberian flag.

Early reports indicated no deaths, no injuries, and a “massive blast.”  (Seatrade Maritime).

News reports showed that a container that was typically used for refrigerated loads held the hazardous goods, but that container was not in refrigerated use.

All the World’s a Stage, Kind Of

Gathering accurate information at the beginning of an event is nearly impossible.  Circumstances are shifting and facts aren’t fully available.

Reports unfolded in the early hours – the waking hours in the United States.  The container (and therefore the ship) held specific hazardous goods, including lithium batteries and tert-Butyl peroxybenzoate.  For the latter, its temperature should not exceed 30C or 86F.  China at this time of year, by the way, definitely exceeds those temperatures. Weather Underground confirms that.

Many sources quoted Peter Sand, the Chief Analyst of Xeneta. He essentially says “this shouldn’t happen.”

I agree. Later in the same day, a passenger plane exploded in Brazil with just over 60 souls aboard.  The circumstances surrounding that catastrophe are not available yet. Flukes?  Or breakdowns in systems.  Circumvention of controls and best practices? Abandoned checklists? Ice (articles two days later posit ice may be a factor).

If One Thing’s Hazardous, the Whole Thing’s Hazardous

One fact to consider – if one item within a shipment is hazardous, the shipment itself must be treated as hazardous. Paperwork necessary for compliance. “How to ship” followed and documented. Everything on a shipment can be called one big shipment.

A refrigerated container not refrigerated is not truly a reefer, as they call it.

Back to Mr. Sand’s analysis: “An investigation will take place and the industry must learn from it. Container ships are used to transport hazardous and potentially explosive cargo, so it is of paramount importance that robust safety measures are in place.”

Robust means safety, paperwork, and checks and balances.  Complete all of the steps.  Inspect what you expect.

Impact and Analysis

Some predictions on impact.  In the short term, the news will die down. A day later at the time of writing, not much new information is available. tert-Butyl peroxybenzoate as the identified cargo is new, and it’s not safe to inhale.

Longer term, there may be respiratory illness for people who were exposed to what was unleashed into the air.

The historical movement of the ship itself can be tracked using a site called VesselFinder.com. The YM Mobility’s history begins in 2011, and it’s frequently seen in Jebel Ali in the United Arab Emirates.  Detailed data is available at the site for a fee, but the limited data shows some routine.

The ship’s operating steamship line knows the route and typical temperatures. Systems were in place in terms of route and possibility goods shipped.

Systems

Humans break tolerances.  We push limits and in time may disregard them altogether.  Then, something happens that seems to arrive from the origin named “nowhere,” and the systems we somewhat followed are called into question.

Is there negligence here?  Where else are the same practices put into place because no harm came to light until this incident?  What will be changed as a result of this explosion on this ship on 9 August 2024?

Everything interoperates, and effects aren’t restricted just to time of event. 2024 serves as a highlight of the breakage of systems, from the cybersecurity vendor Crowdstrike bad update that broke millions of computers using Microsoft Windows to the container ship striking the Baltimore area bridge.  The aforementioned plane crash and this explosion.  These, the moment-in-time events, are often the effects, not the causes.

How do we get – and do – better?  What isn’t fully working should not be automated, and only the system owners can fully evaluate that condition.