The descending leg of the BR-277 highway leading over a mountainous region down to the port of Paranagua has been damaged in several areas due to mudslides, the company Ecovia which operates the highway concession said.
"BR-277 has problems with four bridges between Curitiba (the Parana state capital) and Paranagua due to the strong rains the fell in the region last week," Ecovia said in a statement on Monday.
"The damage occurred on the leg descending to Paranagua ... where there was a failure in a bridge," the company said.
Traffic coming up through the mountainous pass from Paranagua appears to be flowing normally according to Ecovia. Conceivably, trucks could be sent down this leg of the highway but with considerable disruption in the flow to the port.
Lines of trucks were now building up further inland and the crucial railway that also brings wagons of bulk cargo such as soy, corn and sugar to the port has also been interrupted until Wednesday, the port authority Appa said without explanation of the cause of the stoppage in service.
Appa's superintendent, Airton Vidal Maron, said the port's grain silos were filled to their 1.5 million tonne capacity, sufficient to load four ships in the public export corridor of the port.
"After this, and if the interruption of BR-277 is prolonged, (the port) could lack cargo to export," Maron said.
The line of trucks that had built up several miles leading into the port under the heavy rains late last week has been eliminated over the past day and ships were loading grains normally, Appa added.
Ecovia said they were working as quickly as possible to try to resolve the problem with the bridges on the highway leading to the port without a time frame for the reopening of the road to truck traffic.
"On the leg to Paranagua from Curitiba, only traffic of light vehicles is permitted (cars and motorcycles)," said Ecovia in a statement.
Grains trucks bound for Brazil's No. 2 grains port of Paranagua are being instructed to wait at their inland point of origin. Appa estimated that perhaps 500 trucks carrying all types of cargo including grains were waiting to head to the port. Other estimates were as much as 1,000 trucks waiting.
The world's No. 2 soy grower is in full harvest of its soy and corn crops. China is by far the largest single buyer of Brazilian soy. Paranagua is also an important facility for sugar exports from the world No. 1 exporter of the sweetener but volumes are currently small during the cane interharvest.
Shipping agency Williams estimated last week that short freight costs (for journeys of up to 100 km or 63 miles), had risen by about 50 percent because trucks were delayed in returning from Paranagua. (Reuters)
