Hazardous Spill On Container Ship

Six longshoremen and a shipping line superintendent complained of breathing problems, nausea, vomiting and irregular heartbeats after the spill at 8:45 a.m. from a cargo container in a hold aboard the Axel Maersk, Fire Department Public Information Officer Ron Stephens said.

All were conscious and alert when they were taken off the ship, Stephens said.

Roger Boespflug, president of Tacoma-based Local 23 of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union said all seven were in the process of being released early Thursday afternoon after they were given oxygen and blood tests at the hospitals.

"It looks like everything is OK," Boespflug said.

The names of the longshoremen and superintendent for Maersk were not immediately available.

The ship was docked at the Maersk terminal at the port after arriving at 6 a.m. from Los Angeles, port communications manager Mike Wasem said. The vessel's previous port was Hong Kong.

Stephens said the captain of the ship reported a sodium cyanide leak, but the fire department's hazardous materials team believed the chemical aminoethylpiperazine was leaking because the hospitalized crewmen and longshoremen reported seeing a vapor.

Aminoethylpiperazine is a corrosive chemical used in the manufacture of asphalt additives, corrosion inhibitors and epoxy curing agents.

By Thursday afternoon, the fire department still did not know what chemical had been released.

Maersk Sealand spokesman Tom Boyd said the shipping company was looking at a recent addition to the ship's cargo as a possible source. "We think it has something to do with some export containers that were loaded in Los Angeles, some chemicals," he said from the company's offices in Madison, N.J.

About 20 firefighters were on the scene Thursday afternoon, including a nine-member hazardous materials team dressed in protective suits investigating the leak and trying to determine what chemical leaked.