Accident stops sugar loading at Brazil's Recife port, says company

April 19 (Reuters) - An accident with a shiploader at the sugar terminal in the Recife port in Northeastern Brazil suspended loading operations at the site, according to a note from shipping company Williams Brazil.

The company said the shiploader collapsed and a part of the machine fell inside the cargo hold of a vessel that was docked at the port to load raw sugar.

The press service at the Recife port said it would check the situation and have further information about the status of the sugar terminal later on Friday.

Recife is not a major commodities port in Brazil, but it loads smaller volumes of sugar during some months of the year.

According to port line-up information, there were three vessels currently waiting to load 71,000 metric tons of raw sugar at the port. The buyers of the sugar were Louis Dreyfus, Tate & Lyle and ASR, said Williams, with destinations of the United States and Portugal.

There was no immediate information regarding potential injuries to workers.

(Reporting by Marcelo Teixeira in New York; Editing by Bill Berkrot)