Hundreds of thousands of people could leave through the port of Klaipėda on ferries operated by the Danish-owned ferry operator DFDS and others, Algis Latakas, CEO of Klaipėda State Seaport Authority, has said.
“The port of Klaipėda could transport hundreds of thousands of people out of Lithuania in case of such a need,” Latakas told reporters on Friday after a meeting with Interior Minister Agnė Bilotaitė.
According to him, the number of people to be evacuated would be determined by the number of days the evacuation would last.
“We have 11 large ferries and other vessels in the port that, if necessary, could take a large mass of people across the sea,” Latakas said.
“If there was a concentration on transporting people rather than goods, a very large number of people, I think thousands at a time, could get on those ferries without comfort so that they could be transported on those ferries,” he added.
According to Bilotaitė, it has been agreed with the port authority to assess the scale of possible evacuation further.
“At the technical level, we will try to calculate the potential, which is really very high,” she said.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
