Burning container ship triggers Tier II oil spill warning as crew evacuated

Glocal
By Editor_1
Smoke rises from a fire onboard the MV X-Press Pearl container ship off the Colombo Harbour, in Sri Lanka  on Tuesday (25) -  Sri Lanka Airforce Media/Handout
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COLOMBO – Rescuers have evacuated all crew from a container ship off the coast of Sri Lanka as a fire on board intensified triggering a Tier II level oil spill warning.

An explosion was reported from within the vessel, Navy spokesman Indika De Silva said, adding that an air force helicopter was using dry chemical powder to douse the fire.

The MV X-Press Pearl, a container ship sailing with a Singaporean flag and carrying cosmetics and chemicals including 25 tonnes of nitric acid, was anchored off Colombo when a container caught fire on Friday (21), officials said.

The vessel had left the Hazira port in India on May 15 and was on its way to Singapore via Colombo.

Sri Lankan authorities said experts from the Netherlands and Belgium were surveying the ship, while neighbour India had promised to send vessels and an aircraft to help fight the fire.

“A special Dutch flight with vital equipment to contain the fire is now expected to reach Sri Lanka,” Sri Lanka’s shipping minister Rohitha Abeygunawardena said.

Meanwhile, chairperson of Sri Lanka’s Marine Environment Protection Authority, Dharshani Lahandapura, said the fire has been declared a potential Tier II oil spillage and that the incident management team had been activated since the very first day of the fire. “They have mapped all the requirements, expertise, resources and manpower in case of oil spillage. And they are on standby,” she added.

State Minister of Fishery Harbour, Kanchana Wijesekera, said fishery harbours were under threat from an oil spill, noting that the concentration of nitrogen dioxide and carbon dioxide in the air had risen.

However, Lahandapura said the situation was under control, though the wind patterns and the low-pressure situation developing in the area had led to the fire escalating. “There were some explosions in the container but not in the vessel,” he confirmed.

Some containers had also fallen off the blazing vessel into the sea.

The Marine Environment Protection Authority (MEPA) has also notified regional coastal environment and maritime organizations such as International Maritime Organization and South Asian Environmental Corporations to get their assistance if the situation escalates.

“However if there is a spillage we will not have time to get their assistance because it is very close to the coastal area and within a few hours’ time it will reach the coast,” Lahandapura said, adding they were working with local stakeholders to avoid the fire first.

Sri Lanka Port Authority said a team from SMIT Salvage in the Netherlands had arrived in Sri Lanka, while the ship’s owners, X-Press Feeders had sent an offshore supply vessel, Posh Teal, a 4,500 tonne dead weight tonne to help fight the fire.

X-press Pearl is now about 50 kilometres off Sri Lanka’s coast.

-Agencies/ENCL

 

Editor_1
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