According to the WISL workers, they noticed the floating dry dock tilting only in the evening after which some of the workers even boarded the dry dock and opined that the floating dry dock which has not been maintained regularly due to ongoing tussle between the WISL workers and Management might have developed some holes in the wind tank and may have resulted into water ingress. The incident created panic among the workers as they claimed that despite giving intimation to company management, they did not receive any positive response.
“Soon after we received information about the dry dock tilting on one side, we immediately contacted our management officials, requesting them to make some arrangements for diesel so that water could be pumped out from the wind tanks of the floating dry dock. However, despite our distress call, the management did not bother to pay any heed and started giving vague excuses to us and the situation is getting worse hour by hour,” said Secretary of WISL workers union Seby Pereira.
He further informed that “As we did not receive any positive response from our management, we later sent SMS to the MLAs and Ministers of state including the Chief Minister, but received no response even from them. Now we are helpless and have been watching the dock getting tilted,” he said.
When asked, MPT Chairman I Jeyakumar informed he had not received any information on the floating dry dock. “Although I have not received any information about the tilting of the floating dry dock, I will send my officers to the site immediately to verify the same and ask them to submit a report so that precautionary measures can be taken”. He, however, clarified that the dry dock has no oil in it and the vessel would not cause any marine disaster.
It may be recalled that in the month of July this year, the same floating dry dock reported water ingress. The situation, however, was brought under control after water was pumped out from the wind tanks of the dock.
