Cruise company still looking for port for virus ship
Passengers on a virus-stricken cruise liner entered the Panama Canal in Central America Sunday once they were told the business was still searching for a port that may allow them to disembark, even as they pleaded for help.The Panama Canal Authority said the Zaandam liner had entered the canal, which connects the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, on Sunday afternoon after transferring healthy passengers to another ship and restocking supplies.
Holland America Line President Orlando Ashford admitted these were still searching for a port after the mayor of Fort Lauderdale the ship's intended destination said the Florida city could not take the chance of accepting the passengers.
Ashford said in a video message the business was still trying to "find out" where you can disembark passengers from the stricken Zaandam liner -- four of whom have died.The situation was "difficult and unprecedented," he said.
The Zaandam had been stuck in the Pacific Ocean since March 14 after dozens of the 1,800 people on board reported flu-like symptoms and many South American ports refused to let it dock.Panama on Saturday reversed its decision to block the Zaandam from its canal, and said it will be permitted to transit from the Pacific to the Caribbean side for humanitarian reasons.
But Fort Lauderdale mayor Dean Trantalis later said allowing the Zaandam to dock in his city was "completely unacceptable" as no special assurances had received about the passengers' onward travel arrangements."No assurances have been given that they will be escorted from the ship to the treatment facility or located in quarantine. That is completely unacceptable," Trantalis said on Twitter.
"We cannot add further risk to your community amid our very own health crisis here with thousands of individuals already testing positive for the deadly and contagious COVID-19 virus," Trantalis said, adding that the National Guard and the Department of Homeland Security "must create a plan to protect the city."
Passengers showing no signs of the virus were ferried a brief distance to a sister ship, the Rotterdam, off Panama on Saturday. The Rotterdam had arrived from NORTH PARK carrying medical staff, testing kits and food for the beleaguered vessel. The Rotterdam also started transiting through the Panama Canal, authorities said Sunday.
In his message, Ashford said he wanted to dispel a "myth" that one was a "healthy ship" and the other a "sick ship."
"Whether you're isolated on the Zaandam or isolated on the Rotterdam, just how that we protect the fitness of those that are healthy is to make sure you are isolated safely while we figure out where it is that we will take you."
Apologizing to passengers, Ashford said: "It has been a hardcore last several days." The Zaandam left Buenos Aires on March 7 and was likely to arrive fourteen days later at San Antonio, near Santiago, Chile. Since a brief stay in Punta Arenas in Chilean Patagonia on March 14, it has been turned away from several ports after reporting that 42 people aboard were experiencing flu-like symptoms.
US passenger Laura Gabaroni pleaded for help Sunday, saying that the ports that had turned the Zaandam away could have the deaths of passengers on the conscience."Four people are now dead, and that's on the head of all people along the way who turned us away," Gabaroni told AFP after she was evacuated from the Zaandam.
"What we need as part of your right now is a location that will why don't we dock, so that the sick can get treated and the healthy can begin doing whatever they must do to make contact with their homes and their lives."
