A fierce blaze on a cargo ship carrying 3000 automobiles has killed one crewman and continues to be burning uncontrolled off the coast of the Netherlands.
The inferno was reportedly sparked by an electrical automobile on board the ship Fremantle Highway.
The crew of 23 principally Indian nationals initially tried to douse the flames however needed to flee from the ferocious hearth. One of them was killed and others have been injured, with seven sailors leaping into the water, in keeping with the captain of the Ameland lifeboat, Willard Molenaar.
Ship proprietor Shoei Kisen Kaisha in a press release mentioned that the Panama-registered Fremantle Highway was underway to its last vacation spot in Singapore when the hearth broke out. Twenty-five of the 3000 automobiles on board have been EVs.
The firm informed the NOS public broadcaster, “there is a good chance that the fire started with electric cars.”
“We are now trying to extinguish the fire in co-operation with the local authorities of (the) Netherlands, the salvor and the ship management company,” the transport firm mentioned in a press release.
The International Maritime Organisation is planning new rules for ships carrying electrical automobiles with a rising variety of ship fires blamed on the vehicles.
A significant salvage operation has been launched however authorities concern the hearth may burn for weeks and threaten close by pure websites.
Local media reported that it was too harmful to place firefighters aboard the ship.
“If you start filling the ship with water, you risk destabilising it and that could tip it over,” Netherlands Coast Guard spokesman Edwin Grammeman informed broadcaster NOS.
“The ship is being cooled to keep it stable,” the official mentioned.
“Only the side of the ship is being sprayed, not the deck.”
The Fremantle Highway is at the moment near Ameland, one among an archipelago of ecologically delicate islands located within the Waddensee space simply north of the Dutch mainland.
Environmental threat
The Waddensee space spanning the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has a wealthy variety of greater than 10,000 aquatic and terrestrial species.
This included greater than 140 species of fish of which some 20 spent their total life within the tidal areas alongside the islands’ well-known mud flats.
The space additionally has a big seal and porpoise inhabitants.
Should the Fremantle Highway sink, “it would be a disaster of the highest order,” the day by day tabloid De Telegraaf mentioned.
Salvage vessels have been on the scene making an attempt to place out the blaze and forestall the ship from sinking, the coastguard mentioned.
A tug vessel has managed to connect a cable to the stricken ship to stop it from drifting and blocking an essential crusing route into Germany.
The Fremantle Highway is an 18,500-tonne automotive service ship and was crusing between Bremerhaven in Germany and Port Said in Egypt when the blaze broke out, in keeping with the marinetraffic.com web site.
‘Minimising damage’
The injured sailors, primarily from India, have been taken to the northern cities of Lauwersoog and Eelde and left within the care of paramedics there.
“They all suffered from breathing problems, but none are in serious danger,” a security official of the Drenthe area informed AFP.
“The sailors were also treated for burns and broken bones,” she added. “Currently several parties including salvagers and the Dutch authorities are looking at minimising the damage as much as possible,” the Coast Guard mentioned.
Holidaymakers loved Ameland’s fashionable seashores on Wednesday and appeared unaffected by the drama on the ship, which may very well be noticed as a tiny dot on the horizon, surrounded by a cloud of smoke, an AFP correspondent mentioned.
“It’s been there the whole day, but it’s barely been visible,” a lifeguard who requested to not be named informed AFP.
Some 340 containers tumbled off one of many world’s largest container ships after a storm in the identical space in early 2019, littering kilometres of pristine shoreline with plastic and polystyrene.
Fires on car-carrying ships have been more and more the supply of main losses, insurers mentioned.
Last yr the Felicity Ace sank of the coast of the Azores within the Atlantic Ocean with some 4,000 automobiles from German automotive maker Volkswagen on board.
– with AFP
Source: www.news.com.au
