Team Herald
VASCO: Even after making numerous attempts to remove the grounded pontoon from Arossim beach, Arihant Ship Breakers could not achieve success on Monday. The work will continue on Tuesday.
Sources informed that, after the arrival of the crane, the heavy machinery for the salvage operation was shifted to the beach and even installed on Sunday evening. However, when the actual pulling work started on Monday, the five-ton anchor that was attached to the winch started uprooting from the ground, due to which the work had to be suspended.
Sources also informed that Arihant has now asked for a large JCB to excavate sand up to 20 feet deep, and later a new eight-ton winch anchor will be placed underneath the sand so that the winch can take the load of the pontoon while pulling.
“We had confidence that the pontoon would be pulled in the first attempt easily. However, the anchor that we attached to the winch was not taking the load and had been coming up from the sand. We had buried a five-ton concrete block (winch anchor) at about 3.5 metres deep, but as the same was not taking the load of the pontoon, we have decided to replace the winch anchor block with a higher capacity one. The higher capacity JCB will arrive on Tuesday evening and then we would start the work of strengthening the winch anchor by putting the same 20 feet below the sand. Then the pontoon can be removed,” said an Arihant staff member on condition of anonymity.
This clearly means that Arihant Ship Breakers will not be in a position to pull the pontoon within the deadline set by the South Goa Collector.
“I am regularly taking stock of the situation. Today, they made attempts to pull the pontoon but were unsuccessful due to some reasons, but they will continue the operations tomorrow,” said Collector Swapnil Naik.
