The sudden disruption left Britain isolated and unnerved, its people stranded at airports or quarantined at home. It aroused fears of panic buying in British supermarkets, as a nation already rattled by a mysterious new strain of the virus now had to worry about running out of fresh food in the days before Christmas.

Some of Britain's biggest shippers have written to MPS to ask for a parliamentary inquiry into the port congestion crippling the country’s container supply chains.

ONE revised estimate of lost containers from ONE Apus, the container vessel that was hit by a storm in the Pacific last week, now stands at 1,816, of which some 64 are believed to be Dangerous Goods containers.