Early in the morning of February 27th, a major earthquake with a magnitude
of 8.8 struck central Chile - causing buildings to collapse, starting fires
and unleashing a tsunami across the Pacific. Only 10 minutes had elapsed
before the tsunami hit several major ports in Chile.
Contingency Group mobilized
"During the course of Saturday, our Norwegian Hull Club duty officer received
two separate notifications from Members who had incurred damage and losses
following the Tsunami, which both Members reported as being minor," says Solberg.
Norwegian Hull Club decided to mobilize our Contingency Group in order to investigate
whether other Members or Clients had suffered any losses or damage.
Communication with Chile proved to be extremely difficult since all
telephone and communication lines had broken down. However, after a short
period it seemed that Internet lines to certain regions were open. Initial
contact with our local correspondent was made via SKYPE (Internet
communication), which allowed us to receive information and provide
instructions.
Involved in 17 risks
"Based on our investigations, we were able to ascertain that the Club was
involved in a total of 17 risks occurring in various ports in Chile when the
earthquake and tsunami struck. Our exposure has been mainly under H&M and
LOH policies, but exposure under builder's risk policies has also been
identified," says Solberg.
Based on the information received so far, we can conclude that the potential
damage and losses in some cases have been mitigated by pro-active leadership
on board some of our vessels. Worst case thinking has been implemented and
several masters identified the tsunami as a worst case scenario following
the earthquake. As mentioned above, it took only 10 minutes before the
tsunami struck the Port of San Antonio in North . In this short time frame
we have seen that Masters prepared the vessels for the expected tsunami
immediately by securing gangways, closing side ports / closing loading and
discharge ramps on vehicles carriers, securing cranes, etc. These actions
have definitively reduced potential losses for Owners as well as
Underwriters.
Established networks
Following major disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, Norwegian Hull
Club will mobilize internal contingency teams in order to assist Members as
required and collect information which provides us with an overview of our
exposure as soon as possible.
Our NHC Operational Intelligence Team proved extremely useful with regard to
finding and gathering available information via the Internet and other
established networks, due in particular to the tremendous communication
challenges which were experienced during the initial phase.
Worst case scenario thinking and pro-active leadership from Masters /
Officers mitigated potential damage and losses.
