Port Sahel Death Toll Finalized as Shipping Company Announces Settlement with Victims’ Families

PORT SAHEL, CENTRAL AFRICAN ECONOMIC CORRIDOR (CAEC) — The final death toll from last week’s catastrophic collapse of the W-881 “Equinox Line” wormhole corridor has been confirmed at 47 fatalities, all human crew and staff working at Port Sahel Terminal 6 when the incident occurred. Officials say the revised figure reflects the recovery of additional remains from containment debris and the inclusion of contractors and visiting freight specialists who were not initially logged in station records. In a statement released late Tuesday, HorizonGate Shipping, the company operating the terminal during the collapse, announced it has reached an agreement to provide one-time compensation payments to the families of those killed. The amount of the settlement has not been disclosed publicly, but sources familiar with the negotiations have characterized it as “modest” and “below industry norms” for incidents of this scale. --- Company Declines International Review HorizonGate has refused to participate in an inquiry proposed by the Interspatial Transit Authority (ITA) and the United Nations Subcommittee on Wormspace Transit (UNSWT), both of which had requested access to the company’s safety protocols and maintenance records for the Equinox Line. In its official response, HorizonGate said the investigation would be “redundant” given the internal review already conducted by the Central African Economic Corridor Authority. Safety advocates have criticized the move, arguing that without independent oversight, systemic issues in corridor operations could go unaddressed. --- Operations to Resume Despite the incident and ongoing calls for reform, Port Sahel is expected to resume operations within the next few weeks. According to the CAEC Authority, critical replacement components for the corridor’s containment lattice and curvature field regulators have already been ordered from overseas suppliers and are en route. Once repairs are completed and systems pass local inspection, freight scheduling will restart immediately — beginning with the high-priority backlog of container traffic that has been rerouted to other regional ports since the collapse. --- This is a developing story. Follow IWN for updates on the Port Sahel reopening and regional transit impacts. ---

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