After almost five months, the Elbe in Saxony is once again navigable for commercial vessels under certain rules. A convoy of cargo ships loaded with a generator and fertilizer from the Czech port of Lovosice passed the partially collapsed Carola Bridge in Dresden on Monday morning on its way to Antwerp in Belgium. At 12.00 noon, the 135-metre-long convoy consisting of the motor cargo vessel "Dick" and the pushed barge "Dick 1" passed the Dresden Elbe crossing without any problems. They were carrying a generator weighing around 221 tons and around 300 to 500 tons of fertilizer, a very urgent transport.
For Sächsische Binnenhäfen Oberelbe GmbH and its partners upstream on the Elbe in the Czech Republic, this marks the end of a forced break with "dramatic consequences" for the economic situation, as Managing Director Heiko Loroff said. "We have lost a high six-figure sum in turnover." From September to April is actually the peak period, "that's when we have the highest density of ships and transport the highest volumes of goods on the Elbe".
