Deltaport was shut down for several hours today due to a potential hazmat situation.

Global Container Terminals Canada (GCT), the operator for the Port of Vancouver’s Delta terminal, tweeted at about 11 a.m. that the port’s truck gates will be closed until further notice due to a “terminal incident.”

GCT Deltaport gate operations are shut down due to Terminal incident. We will advise once operations resume.
– https://t.co/OcpxOpsvKQ

— GCT Canada (@GCT_Can) July 17, 2017

GCT spokesperson Louanne Wong said the shut down was the result of a worker on board a ship at the port reporting an unknown material coming from a container.

“We take the greatest precautions possible, so the first thing to do is to shut down the terminal to make sure that everybody is kept safe in a larger exclusion zone until we bring in the contractors and the police department to investigate,” Wong said. “Until that happens, we don’t reduce it down.”

Deltaport Way was closed west of 41B Street while a third-party environmental contractor and the Delta fire department assessed the situation, as per port protocol.

At 2:30 p.m the exclusion zone was reduced to a 50-metre radius of the ship and normal port operations were resumed.