Major ports in southern India were closed on Monday after a devastating tsunami hit the coast at the weekend, although damage to facilities is minimal and operations are expected to resume soon, shipping sources said.

Several ships were moved from the port out to sea after the tsunami waves hit to escape the impact of the large waves near the shores, but no ships or oil tankers, except one bulk cargo vessel, were damaged, they said.

Port authorities said the situation would be reviewed later on Monday.

"Port operations were suspended after the disaster. We will assess the situation today and hope to soon begin loading and unloading work at berths handling bulk and liquid cargoes," said an official at Madras Port.

Madras port, also known as Chennai port, has shifted 10 ships and three other vessels are waiting, while 11 ships are waiting at Tuticorin port, officials said. Four vessels are waiting at Kakinada port.

Two oil tankers with crude and petroleum products and one palm oil tanker were among the ships at the anchorage of the Madras port, which handles more than 9 million tonnes of crude oil and petroleum products every year, the sources said.

"There has been no damage to ships," said T. Balakrishnan, deputy chairman of Tuticorin port, adding port operations were expected to resume on Monday afternoon.

The nearby 190,000-barrel-per-day (bpd) Chennai Petroleum Corporation Ltd. refinery in Manali, outside Madras, was operating normally after Sunday's tsunami, sources said. The tsunami, triggered by one of the biggest earthquakes in 40 years that struck off the Indonesian island of Sumatra, killed more than 15,500 people in Asia.

One official at Madras port said a vessel, which brought 38,000 tonnes of raw sugar from Brazil, were slightly damaged and unloading of about 1,500 tonnes could not be completed.

The sugar still on the vessel, Gem of Tuticorin, might have been spoilt by the water, the official said.

Madras port on India's southeastern seaboard serves as a key logistics hub for the export of a range of goods from cars to coffee.

South Korean car giant Hyundai Motor Co. has a large plant on the outskirts of Madras from where it exports its small cars to Africa, North America and Western Europe.

Ford Motor Co., which also has a plant near Madras, exports cars to some of its overseas markets.

(Source: Reuters)

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