The acute container backlog at the Chattogram port has started to ease, albeit at a snail's pace, thanks to daily deliveries and transfers over the past week following the resumption of vehicular movement on the Dhaka-Chattogram highway.

The port had become choked with severe container and vessel congestion due to a series of operational disruptions since the middle of July.

The hiatus emanated from the countrywide anti-discrimination student movement, internet blackout and political unrest till early August, followed by a weeklong suspension of vehicular movement due to floods.

The port's users, officials and operators opined that the situation was slowly improving but it could take one and a half months for normalcy to return.

Daily deliveries and transfers of containers from the port's yards had dropped to less than 2,000 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) for the floods till August 26.

Over the past week, it has increased to over 4,000 TEUs.

Usually, over 5,000 TEUs of import-laden containers are delivered daily to consignees as well as transferred to private inland container depots (ICDs).

The uptick in deliveries and transfers helped to slightly ease the congestion.

The pileup of containers, reaching over 39,000 TEUs till August 26, has dropped to 37,700 TEUs as of Wednesday morning.

The port had become nearly choked with over 43,000 TEUs of containers till the middle of August, as its total storage capacity is 53,518 TEUs.

However, there has been a noticeable improvement in the waiting time of container vessels for berth availability.

According to officials of different shipping agents, the average waiting time had reached 7 to 8 days last month, whereas now it has come down to 4 to 5 days.

This was true for gearless vessels, but geared vessels, meaning those equipped with cranes for loading and off-loading cargo, are not facing any berthing delays, they said.

A total of nine gearless container vessels were waiting at the outer anchorage for berth availability as of Tuesday. Of them, MV Hansa Lanka had arrived on August 29.

The waiting time has been reduced for the increase in daily deliveries and transfers of import-laden containers, said Muntasir Rubayat, director of Bangladesh Shipping Agents Association (BSAA).

Transport of import-laden containers to the Dhaka ICD over railways has also resumed recently, he said.

But still, there are over 1,700 TEUs of such containers at the port's yards, he informed.

On the other hand, the turnaround time, meaning the time required for a vessel to unload import-laden containers, load export-laden ones, perform necessary operations and be ready for the next voyage, was as much as four days last month.

Vessels are still requiring at least three days for this, said Nazmul Haque, executive director (port operations) of Saif Powertec Ltd, which operates New Mooring Container Terminal and Chittagong Container Terminal.

On a normal day, vessels can leave within two days, he said.

Around 70 percent of the yards at the two terminals is still occupied with a pileup of containers, which was making it difficult to run operations smoothly, he said.

Transport of export-laden containers from the 21 private ICDs to the port has gained a lot of momentum over the past week, said Ruhul Amin Sikder, secretary general of Bangladesh Inland Container Depots Association (BICDA).

Over 2,200 TEUs of export-laden containers were transported for shipment on an average each day, he said.

It is usually around 1,800 to 2,000 TEUs, he informed.

The berth operators assume that it may take over one month for the backlog to fully ease and for normalcy to return.