A Part of Terminal 6 at the Port of Felixstowe, the UK's Busiest Container Port, Collapsed

On 10 April, a part of terminal 6 at the Port of Felixstowe, the UK's busiest container port, collapsed, and the reason is still being investigated by the port's engineering consultants.

Dredging operations were underway at the time of the accident at the box terminal, which will enable the Port of Felixstowe's Berth 6 to handle ultra-large container ships.

The Port of Felixstowe, in Felixstowe, Suffolk, is the United Kingdom's busiest container port, dealing with 48% of Britain's containerised trade. In 2017, it was ranked as the 43rd busiest container port in the world and 8th in Europe, with handled traffic of 3.85 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU).

The port has two main container terminals, Trinity and Landguard, as well as a roll-on/roll-off terminal.

There is a continuous quay of over 2.3 kilometres (1.4 mi), equipped with 29 ship-to-shore gantry cranes. The main navigation channel is dredged to 14.5 metres below the chart datum, with a maximum depth of 15 metres[citation needed] alongside the quay. This allows Felixstowe to accommodate the world's latest generation of deep-draughted post-Panamax vessels and the much larger Maersk Triple E class, launched in 2013 and capable of carrying 18,000 TEUs.

Felixstowe's port handles a record-breaking quantity of containers from a single ship. Felixstowe Port has set a new record for the number of containers dealt with on a single ship. The record was reached after the MSC Amelia, which left the port on March 8, handled a total of 27,961 standard-sized containers, breaking its own record for the third time in two months.

According to a tweet from Heavy Lift HQ, port operations will be disrupted for a period of time until the damages are fixed.

The cavity on the berth at Terminal 6 of the port's main facility did not appear to be connected to the dredging operations to deepen the water alongside, according to a Felixstowe source.

"The sinkhole isn't that serious," he explained, "the port is simply waiting for civil engineers to advise, but it should be a simple remedy."

A port official stated earlier this week that its engineer consultants were looking into the cause of the sinkhole but wouldn't go into detail.