Mangaluru: With the New Mangalore Port Trust (NMPT) denying permission to an international cruise liner to dock at the port, as many as 1,400 international passengers have been stranded here in the port city of Mangaluru.
The Port officials have followed the directives of the Ministry of Shipping so as to prevent the Coronavirus from spreading.
The ship was scheduled to reach NMPT on Saturday morning at about 6 am, but when the Ministry of Shipping decided to stop the disembarkment of crew and passengers having travel history to infected countries, on March 5, the NMPT had to follow the directives and deny permission to the ship named MSC Lirica from the Republic of Panama to dock.
Unfortunately, MSC Lirica had departed from Dubai on February 29, ported at Abu Dhabi, Khor Fakkan, Muscat, Oman and reached Mangaluru then. It had to proceed to Goa and Mumbai on Sunday and Monday respectively.
Despite the crew of the ship convincing that Port authorities that none of the passengers had any symptoms of the Corona Virus infection, the Port authorities decided to implement the government directives.
As per sources in the Port, four more ships are supposed to reach Mangaluru from various places till March 31, but due to the directive, these ships will also be turned away.
