Lithium battery fire halts work at Los Angeles, Long Beach port terminals

Several terminals at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach canceled their second shift on September 26 and will close on September 27 after a big rig overturned on a vital roadway and the lithium batteries it was carrying caught fire, Report informs via Bloomberg.

“The batteries have been damaged, and are on fire and off-gassing (with reports of one battery exploding),” the LAFD said in an alert at 2 p.m. local time.

The Southern California ports make up the busiest container hub in the US, handling roughly a third of the nation’s waterborne cargo.