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Coronavirus pandemic
This Week in AsiaHealth & Environment

Coronavirus: anxiety mounts on Westerdam cruise ship, set adrift over outbreak fears

  • Holland America cruise ship has been turned away from five ports, despite there being no evidence of coronavirus infection on board
  • It will now be allowed to dock in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, on Thursday morning

Reading Time:4 minutes
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An aerial view of the MS Westerdam as it left Hong Kong on February 1. Photo: Handout
Meaghan Tobin

When cruise passengers first boarded the MS Westerdam, they thought they were in for decadent dessert buffets and nightly appearances by a magician. Instead, the 2,257 passengers – mostly from the US, Canada and Britain – and crew on board the Netherlands-flagged vessel have faced days of uncertainty adrift on the sea after being refused entry by five different ports.

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The ship, operated by Carnival Corporation’s Holland America Line , set sail from Hong Kong on February 1, planning to dock in Yokohama two weeks later, but was denied entry to Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Guam before Thailand’s Health Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on Tuesday announced it would also be refused permission to dock in Laem Chabang port, about 50 miles east of Bangkok.
On Wednesday evening, Holland America Line confirmed that the ship had been granted a port of entry in Cambodia, and will arrive in Sihanoukville on Thursday morning.
This came after rumours circulated on Twitter of an announcement by the ship’s captain that international health authorities, as well as the governments of the US, Canada, Britain and the Netherlands, were working together to find a port of entry.

Stephen Hansen, a passenger travelling on the Westerdam with his wife, said patience was wearing thin among those on board.

“We are no longer just a group of inconvenienced travellers,” said Hansen by email. “If we don’t dock soon we will start running low on food, fuel and medications. Our governments need to step in and work with Asian countries to find a solution. The crew and [cruise operator] Holland America are doing all they can, but this is a political situation as well as a health one.”

The cruise ship could have been forced to wait until it was in distress – running out of water, food or fuel – before international law-of-the-sea conventions kicked in and legally obliged the closest country to admit the vessel or provide help, Jean-Paul Rodrigue, a professor of transit geography at Hofstra University in New York, told Bloomberg News.

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