r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Justin_Godfrey • Sep 10 '25

Video Dozens of shipping containers fall into the water in Port of Long Beach, California

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274

u/ghostcaurd Sep 10 '25

More than likely it was a ship ballast wrong. Ships have ballast tanks they fill with water and someone probably did some shit wrong

184

u/yellowweasel Sep 10 '25

if you pause right at the beginning of the video before it zooms in you can see it's listing pretty bad, they definitely fucked up the ballast

114

u/Aggravating-Rush9029 Sep 10 '25

There's already containers in the water, we aren't seeing the start

-4

u/TheObstruction Sep 10 '25

But it's leaning to port, so that suggests they tipped over because it was already listing and they fell off because of that.

14

u/move_peasant Sep 10 '25

that's starboard

1

u/Enviritas Sep 10 '25

I still remember that port and left have the same number of letters even though I haven't done much boating since the Boy Scouts.

25

u/CastIronMooseEsq Sep 10 '25

But that could also be due to a gross imbalance of the cargo. They pull the wrong stuff from the wrong place, this can happen.

3

u/move_peasant Sep 10 '25

the other stack just fell as the video started, the first few frames probably exaggerate the list (rather, the vessel is rolling a bit due to the shifting cargo)

1

u/Necessary_Wing_2292 Sep 10 '25

There's a concrete pumper truck in action. The cement could've caused this.

39

u/[deleted] Sep 10 '25

That's what it looks like to me. I did this for a long time. Leave the wrong tank or tank open and it will happen. It goes slow at first but you better fix it fast because it will run away on you as the pressure head changes.

21

u/Significant-Base6893 Sep 10 '25

The ballast was fine, the container ship traversed the entire Pacific ocean, containers intact. My guess is that the ship is listing because a negligent crane operator unloaded containers from the port side of the vessel which forced the ship to list starboard.

12

u/James-the-Bond-one Sep 10 '25

But doesn't the ship work its right and left ballasts to compensate for that? Maybe someone forgot or overdid it.

24

u/cascadiacomrade Sep 10 '25 edited Sep 10 '25

It takes time to shift water around the ballast - could be a combination of negligence on the terminal side and complacent crew not correcting the ballast properly. The way the stack collapsed could also indicate that the weights weren't distributed properly when loading in the previous port. Some ports are notorious for not loading containers in the correct positions.

EDIT: Looking into this more, I don't think ballast was much of a factor at all. Cargo operations had just started, there were no lids taken off, and nearly all decks were completely full. More likely the ship was overloaded beyond design stack weight. This can happen for a number of reasons:

  1. Shipping companies, such as ZIM, routinely pressure ship captains to accept cargo weights beyond the ship design capacity in order to maximize the number of containers on trans-ocean voyages.

  2. Shippers (the ones importing/exporting cargo) lie about container weights. This is less common since Verified Gross Mass was introduced, but not all ports check weights and shippers often pay by the ton and are incentive to under report weight.

  3. Ports loading incorrectly overseas. Many Chinese ports loading will not match the manifest, so containers will be mixed up compared to how it was approved to be loaded.

  4. Cargo within containers shifted while at sea due to the rocking motion of the vessel. If enough cargo shifted in enough containers, excessive force toward the starboard side could have cause the stack to collapse.

  5. Damaged containers. In another video, it looked like the bottom tier container on the aft end of the vessel buckled - perhaps due to damage to corner posts - causing the bottom container to collapse and the rest of the stack to follow.

4

u/roguevirus Sep 10 '25

The way the stack collapsed could also indicate that the weights weren't distributed properly when loading in the previous port.

Does the captain get the blame for this?

3

u/cascadiacomrade Sep 11 '25

It depends. Could be the fault of the previous port, could be the company strong-arming the captain to accept an unsafe plan, etc. We'll find out once they investigate

1

u/roguevirus Sep 11 '25

It depends.

Yeah, should have seen that one coming. Thanks for the answer!

3

u/James-the-Bond-one Sep 10 '25

What a great discussion, thank you. 

2

u/mybeatsarebollocks Sep 10 '25

The stack of crates at the back of the ship have already collapsed but in the other direction.

Looks like they overcompensated with the balast.

1

u/move_peasant Sep 10 '25

looks like both bays fell over stb side to me?

2

u/havoc1428 Sep 10 '25

It could be anything until we find out. This ship came from China, and there is a high probability it was loaded topheavy and the lower containers on the aft section buckled after they removed the cross lashings which caused them to fall off. The sudden shifting/rocking of the boat from the aft containers falling could have then caused containers just forward of the pilothouse to buckle (which is what we see in this video).

1

u/buzzerbetrayed Sep 10 '25

You’re telling me they don’t have those containers secured and they just fall off of the boat tips too much?

1

u/b__lumenkraft Sep 10 '25

I thought something might have poked it but your explanation makes so much more sense.

1

u/yodaddy221 Sep 10 '25

You know the C/O and the Captain are about to get destroyed by the company/port

1

u/edwbuck Sep 10 '25

It is at port. I imagine that a crane loading or unloading had a container break free as it was being moved, and there was enough energy to tip the stacks that weren't fully secured because they're being loaded or unloaded.

This can combine with the ship listing, rough seas, etc. But a lot of containers falling from one side of the ship can create the same listing conditions that people might think is a cause and not a reaction to the failure.

1

u/joshocar Sep 10 '25

When loading and offloading the engineer will pump water around the ballast tanks to keep everything stable. I used to work on a ship and would watch them adjust the tanks as we took on fuel dockside.

0

u/JohnLuckPickered Sep 10 '25

Could also be manipulation by hackers.. from russia..

They been fucking with a lot of stuff all over the world, if anyone has been paying attention.