Dozens of containers fall off vessel berthed in Long Beach
No injuries but cargo operations temporarily suspended
US Coast Guard said that 67 containers fell from the Zim-operated, 5,500 teu Mississippi while berthed at the US port of Long Beach on the morning of September 9. An investigation into the cause of the collapse is ongoing
AN ESTIMATED 67 containers on board the Zim-operated Mississippi (IMO: 9954187) collapsed while the vessel was berthed at Long Beach, California, on Tuesday.
A spokesperson for the port, Art Marroquin, said the 2024-built, 5,500 teu Mississippi was at International Terminal Services’ Pier G just before 0900 hrs local time. Port officials are still trying to determine what caused the collapse.
Marroquin said 67 containers fell from the vessel both into the water and on to the quayside.
A small clean-air barge that was connected to the vessel was damaged, but no injuries have been reported.
Cargo operations at Pier G have been temporarily suspended while work to secure the containers and ensure dockworker safety continues. No other terminals or port operations have been impacted.
The US Coast Guard secured a 500-yard safety zone around the ship and are alerting nearby vessels of the potential safety hazards every hour.
The USGC released a statement, saying that it was in the preliminary stages of investigating the cause of the incident.
According to the statement, a unified command has been established in response, including representatives from the US Coast Guard, Long Beach Fire Department, Port of Long Beach and Army Corps of Engineers.
In a video shared by the US Coast Guard Northern California two separate stack collapses can be observed.
Video footage of containers falling from vessel Mississippi taken by @uscg Sector LA-LB Incident Management Division while on scene. #longbeach #vesselmississippi #polb #uscg pic.twitter.com/bAMNlhDUFB
— USCGNorCal (@USCGNorCal) September 10, 2025
Vespucci Maritime chief executive Lars Jensen said in an online post that the vessel was operating on the transpacific ZEX service. He added that the stack collapses meant cargo may have been damaged in containers on board the ship not just those that went overboard.
According to Lloyd’s List Intelligence vessel-tracking data, Mississippi, sailing under the Madeira flag, arrived in Long Beach yesterday having sailed from Yantian, China, where it departed on August 26.
Long Beach handled more than 9m teu last year, and is the is the second busiest US port behind neighbouring Los Angeles.
In late July, between 30 and 40 containers fell off a containership off the coast of Brazil. The vessel, Ever Feat (IMO: 9850898), berthed in Montevideo after the incident on July 29. The vessel suffered structural damage amid heavy seas while on route south from Navegantes.
Container stack collapses caused by rough weather conditions have become an increasing risk for containerships operating on deepsea routes. Recently, the World Shipping Council reported that rerouting around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid Red Sea risk has led to an increase in containers lost overboard. A third of boxes lost at sea in 2024 were in the waters off South Africa.
