PANAMA CITY, March 30, 2020 (BSS/AFP) – Passengers on a virus-stricken
cruise liner entered the Panama Canal in Central America Sunday after they
were told the company was still searching for a port which will 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 they 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 risk of
accepting the passengers.
Ashford said in a video message the company was still trying to “figure
out” where to 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 several South
American ports refused to let it dock.
Panama on Saturday reversed its decision to block the Zaandam from its
canal, and said it would be allowed 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
been given about the passengers’ onward travel arrangements.
“No assurances have been given that they will be escorted from the ship to
either a treatment facility or placed in quarantine. This is completely
unacceptable,” Trantalis said on Twitter.
“We cannot add further risk to our community amid our own health crisis
here with thousands of people 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
community.”
– Ships ‘in tandem’ –
Passengers showing no signs of the virus were ferried a short distance to a
sister ship, the Rotterdam, off Panama on Saturday. The Rotterdam had arrived
from San Diego carrying medical staff, testing kits and food for the
beleaguered vessel.
The Rotterdam also began 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, the
way that we protect the health of those of you that are healthy is to make
sure that you’re isolated safely while we figure out where it is that we’re
going to take you.”
Apologizing to passengers, Ashford said: “It’s been a tough last several
days.”
– Worried passengers –
The Zaandam left Buenos Aires on March 7 and was supposed to arrive two
weeks later at San Antonio, near Santiago, Chile.
Since a brief stop in Punta Arenas in Chilean Patagonia on March 14, it has
been turned away from several ports after reporting that 42 people aboard
were suffering from flu-like symptoms.
US passenger Laura Gabaroni pleaded for help Sunday, saying that the ports
that had turned the Zaandam away would have the deaths of passengers on their
conscience.
“Four people are now dead, and that is on the head of all the people along
the way who turned us away,” Gabaroni told AFP after she was evacuated from
the Zaandam.
“What we need more than ever right now is a place that will let us dock, so
that the sick can get treated and the healthy can start doing whatever they
have to do to get back to their homes and their lives.”
“Please help us.”
In a video recorded in his small cabin in which he had been confined for
six days, passenger Dante Leguizamon told AFP on Saturday it was “very
difficult to maintain mental health”.
“I am… on a boat that I cannot get off, with coronavirus patients, with
four dead,” he said, adding that he was “full of uncertainty, without
money… and without knowing if there is a plane back home.”