Lanka battles fire on vessel loaded with chemicals
COLOMBO: Sri Lankan authorities battled on Wednesday to put out a fire raging for a week on a container ship loaded with chemicals to avoid a potential marine environmental disaster.
The Singapore-registered vessel, within sight of the shore, is carrying 25 tonnes of nitric acid as well as other unspecified chemicals and cosmetics, the navy said.
Eight of its nearly 1,500 containers fell overboard on Tuesday, one of which washed ashore at the Negombo tourist beach 40km north of Colombo.
Strong winds associated with a cyclone hitting eastern India hampered efforts to put out the blaze as a huge cloud of black smoke rose from the MV X-press Pearl. Sri Lanka’s airforce used helicopters to drop about 425kg of fire retardant chemicals on the ship on Wednesday.
Dharshani Lahandapura from the marine environment protection authority said containment measures were being prepared in case chemicals or fuel oil are spilled from the ship’s engine and fuel tanks.
“Computer modelling showed any spill from the ship will reach the Negombo beach and we are ready to tackle it,” Lahandapura told reporters in Colombo.
“Given the monsoon wind pattern, we are concentrating on this area and we are moving equipment to deal with a spill,” she said.
The container ship was on its way to Colombo from Gujarat in India when the fire broke out on deck on May 20 around 14km offshore.
Two Indian crew members, who were rescued from a container ship that caught fire off the coast of Sri Lanka last week, have tested positive for Covid-19 after undergoing a rapid antigen test (RAT) at a private hospital, newspaper Daily Mirror reported on Wednesday.
All 25 crew members, including five Indians, of the container ship were rescued on Tuesday after a “fire alarm” dispatch was sent.