Plans to reopen Europe's busiest inland waterway to river ships on Friday were put on hold after German emergency services said they feared three missing containers were somewhere in the main channel, according to dpa. The Rhine river has been blocked since Sunday, when the hull of the diesel barge Excelsior cracked, causing it to list and 32 shipping containers to slip into the water. The river is part of a string of rivers and canals connecting Rotterdam to the Black Sea. More than 500 cargo vessels were backed up Friday on both sides of the no-go area near the German city of Cologne and shipping companies lobbied hard for the river to reopen as the cost of delay mounted. "There is some evidence that sunken containers are in the channel," the Cologne inland shipping authority said in a statement after salvagers and officials had debated the risk that a big ship would snag one of the missing containers and smash it under water. Salvagers have recovered 28 containers and located a 29th after the worst container accident on the Rhine in a quarter-century. But three previously located steel containers have been pushed away by the powerful current. Prosecutors in nearby Duisburg said they were investigating the Excelsior crew on suspicion they had overloaded the vessel, causing the hull to rupture. "We are weighing every container on board," said prosecutor Rolf Haferkamp. Most of the containers contained harmless cargoes such as timber, plastic mouldings and tinned food. Three containing hazardous substances have been recovered. Some tannic acid leaked into the river from one of them. Long ships ply the river carrying both containers and bulk cargoes at cheaper rates than Europe's railways.
