LOS ANGELES, Sept. 9 (Xinhua) -- Nearly 70 shipping containers plunged into the water Tuesday morning when a cargo vessel was docked at Southern California's Port of Long Beach, authorities said.
According to a press release from the port, approximately 67 containers toppled from the cargo ship Mississippi at Terminal G shortly after 9:00 a.m. local time. Several of the falling containers struck and damaged a smaller clean-air barge moored alongside the vessel.
Footage posted online captured the dramatic moment as containers tumbled from the vessel like a sea glacier collapsing, crashing into the harbor waters and leaving some twisted and partially submerged. The Mississippi had last docked in China two weeks earlier, according to VesselFinder, a shipping tracker.
A Unified Command has been established to coordinate the response, involving the U.S. Coast Guard, Long Beach Fire Department, Long Beach Police Department, the Port of Long Beach and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
"No injuries have been reported, and no other terminals or port operations have been impacted," the port said in a statement.
The Coast Guard has enforced a 500-yard safety zone around the vessel and is issuing hourly safety broadcasts to alert nearby maritime traffic.
The Port of Long Beach is one of the busiest container gateways in the United States. It handled about 9.6 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) in 2024 and set a new record in July 2025 with 944,232 TEUs. ■
