Striking dockworkers returned to their jobs yesterday afternoon to begin unloading some of the emergency supplies brought in following Hurricane Fabian - but it could be two days before roof slate is available.

More than 50 workers - about 90 percent of the docks staff - at Stevedoring Services Ltd. broke the law yesterday morning and Tuesday afternoon by failing to turn up to work due to the Bermuda Industrial Union action, despite being classed as an essential service.

That means they must, by law, give 21 days notice of any strike action.

The usually bustling docks in Hamilton were silenced as more than 700 containers of supplies, including much-needed slate - sat untouched.

Stevedoring Services operations manager Milton Scott told The Royal Gazette yesterday morning that there was no work being carried out at the docks.

He said there were 600 containers on the dock waiting to be dealt with, and a further 130 on the Somers Isles cargo ship, which arrived on Tuesday, waiting to be dealt with. At the bottom of the ship's cargo were the five containers of roof slate.

And among the containers were also emergency post-hurricane supplies, including bottled water, coolers, batteries and gas.

But yesterday afternoon, the workers returned to work following a meeting of the BIU.

Mr. Scott said: "This afternoon we were able to recommence discharging of the ship.

"The workers have been discharging the ship, as well as moving the containers off the dock. We hope to be able to provide the level of service we normally provide. We will be discharging the ship until 10 p.m. tonight."

But Brian Hollis, contract sales manager for SAL Building Supplies which had ordered the five containers of Dura slate, said he was not expecting to have the materials available for customers until the end of the week.

"We are not going to get our product in our yard until tomorrow and probably people won't be able to pick it up until Friday," he said.

"Even if we get it off the ship first thing in the morning, it will take time to get the slate out of the containers and up here.

"We have written off today altogether and we have pretty much advised our customers that even if everything goes well, they won't get it until Friday.

"I am disappointed with the strike, but people will just have to wait for their supplies."

Mr. Hollis said SAL brought in 30,000 slate tiles on the Somers Isles this week - all of which have already been bought up.

Some 24,000 of those tiles had been made available generally to businesses, and truck drivers queued up overnight on Tuesday to pay for and claim their maximum 1,000-slate batches.

However, Mr. Hollis said he had hoped to bring in a further two or three containers on the Oleander next Monday, but Hurricane Isabel, which is about to hit the East Coast of America, had prevented drivers from taking the supplies from Florida to New Jersey, where the cargo ship will sail from.

So, he said it may have to wait until later next week before being delivered on the Island.

But Mr. Hollis estimated that 500,000 pieces of slate would be needed on the Island to repair roofs damaged in the hurricane, and he said SAL was already preparing to boost production in the US over the coming weeks.

By the start of October, he said he hoped to have tripled production in Florida and said his immediate target was to bring in 150,000 slate in the shortest time possible.

He said: "There is half a million slate and upwards needed on the Island. I know there have been concerns voiced that there was not enough slate on the Island and we were not properly prepared before the hurricane, but we are hoping to talk to Government about boosting inventories during the hurricane season.

"We would like to come to some sort of arrangement where we have higher inventories just in case. We could stockpile it at the start of the hurricane season, but this is something we would have to liaise with Government about."