The loading and unloading of more than 1 million containers every year at the Puerto de La Luz, in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, comes with its own set of dangers, which is why health and safety is of paramount concern in The Canary Islands biggest port. Disaster nearly struck last week, when several large containers toppled on to a waiting truck under a one of the cranes. Thankfully there were no injuries as a result of the incident, although the company has opened an investigation into what exactly led to at least four shipping containers falling from a great height, barely missing the cab of the lorry that one second earlier contained a driver working at the port.

The events on the morning of May 24 occurred at the Opcsa terminal at around 7:30 a.m. when three 12-metre containers crashed onto the dockside where a truck was waiting to be loaded. One of the containers being removed from the ship struck some others causing at least four to fall from the vessel on which they were being carried. In a video, widely shared, a man who was inside the vehicle is alerted to the impending danger, and manages run clear, it was pure luck that the containers missed the cab, and that no one was injured.  The contents of the containers may not have been so lucky.

The port terminal, in Spain’s fourth largest port, has opened an internal investigation to clarify the circumstances of what happened as well as the leak of the video. In any case, those port sources consulted by Spanish language daily La Provincia have highlighted that security is paramount at the site and refer to the incident as an unfortunate but extremely rare event in a terminal that moves more than 20 million tons of freight every year.

A lucky escape in the Puerto La Luz

A lucky escape in the Puerto La Luz as falling containers narrowly miss truck driver who’s just jumped out of his cab

Posted by The Canary News on Friday, June 4, 2021