Inland Container Depots (ICDs) in Chittagong handled only a few hundred of containers on Sunday amid the curfew to control the nationwide deadly anti-quota protest and incidents of violence.
On a regular day, the 19 ICDs in Chittagong handle around 4,000 export, import, and empty twenty-feet equivalent units (TEUs) of containers.
However, the depots could handle only 300 to 400 TEUs of containers on Sunday, according to the Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association (BICDA),
BICDA President Nurul Qayyum Khan said his depot could send only 14 TEUs of export containers and bring only one import container to and from the port.
For others, the situation is almost the same, he told The Financial Express.
He said trucks are unable to reach Chittagong from Dhaka due to security reason.
In addition, sending containers from depots to the port has become risky.
The ICDs handle almost all the export boxes, 38 types of import cargoes, and empty boxes.
"The export-import activities have been seriously disrupted," he said.
BICDA Secretary General Ruhul Amin Biplob said almost 90 per cent works remained suspended at the off docks. Only some 10 per cent trucks are coming to the depots from the factories.
He said usually some 1,800 to 2,200 TEUs of export goods laden containers are being sent to the port a day.
In case of import containers, the depots are failing to bring even one tenth than the usual, he said.
He said delivery of import containers from port to depot also hampered due to malfunction of scanner, absence of scanning officer, and absence of adequate truck drivers.
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