OREANDA-NEWS. A queue of inbound and outbound ships began to grow overnight as agencies worked to clear a damaged chemical tanker that has shut the Houston Ship Channel since yesterday afternoon.

State and federal agencies planned to seal off a crack in the hull of the Carla Maersk with foam to safely move it out of the second-largest US port by tonnage. The ship released MTBE when three port tanks were punctured in a 1:41pm ET collision yesterday with the bulk carrier Conti Peridot.

A safety zone in place around the vessel, near Morgan's Point on the Houston Ship Channel, had halted 28 inbound and 24 outbound vessels as of 7am ET, according to the US Coast Guard. The US Coast Guard this morning hoped to clear the channel by tomorrow.