Salmon Farmers Assess Earthquake Damage

The epicenter of the 8.8-magnitude earthquake was in the central part of the country near Concepcion, whereas most salmon production occurs in the southern part of Chile near cities such as Puerto Montt, reports Seafoodsource .

Both Cermaq and Cooke Aquaculture, which have operations in Puerto Montt, said none of its employees were physically harmed during the earthquake. Nell Halse, VP of communications for Cooke in New Brunswick, said it’s still too soon to assess the full extent of the impact on business operations.

“Our farms have not been affected. Fortunately they are well out of range from where the earthquake and tsunamis hit,” Ms Halse told SeafoodSource on Monday. “But the difficulty now is assessing the impact on the business, especially transportation and communication. It’s going to take a couple of days before we actually find the full impact.”

Ms Halse said a Cooke manager who lives in Sanitago reported that things were starting to return to normal, but that roads and bridges are damaged and won’t be repaired for a while.

“We have heard that the government is putting up temporary structures to get things moving again,” said Ms Halse. “It’s too soon to know for sure if it will have any affect on [salmon] prices. It depends on how quickly the transportation stoppage gets fixed.

“[On Saturday] we were told [the Santiago airport] would be open within 48 hours, but we haven’t heard anything definite,” she added.

Cooke is also waiting to hear if product stored in the area is unharmed.