Major fire on ship carrying dangerous chemicals off Colombo Port

The vessel ‘X-Press Pearl’ had sailed from the north Indian Port of Gujarat and was enroute to Singapore via Colombo when it was caught in a storm leading to damages to the chemical containers.

Sri Lanka Air Force, Navy and Ports Authority firefighters were yesterday battling a major fire off the Colombo Port on a Singaporean vessel carrying chemicals.

A senior navy official said the intensity of the fire was increasing after leakage of the chemicals inside the vessel.

However, 25 crew members including Indians and Chinese were still on board and were out of danger, Commodore Indika Silva said.

He said the vessel was 9.5 nautical miles off the Colombo Port and around the Uswetakeiywa area in Wattala.

The vessel ‘X-Press Pearl’ had sailed from the north Indian Port of Gujarat and was enroute to Singapore via Colombo when it was caught in a storm leading to damages to the chemical containers. The fire broke out when the vessel was anchored off the Colombo Port where it was due to unload 500 containers and reload 600 containers from Colombo.

Marine Env i ronment Protection Authority (MEPA) chairperson Dharshani Lahandapura told the Sunday Times the ship was considered to be carrying dangerous cargo as it contained chemicals including Nitric Acid and Methyl .

She said the ship also had hazardous waste which was being shipped to Singapore.

She said that the container which had started leaking has more than 25 MT of Nitric Acid.

“The priority will be to douse the fire and then move the ship to a safe zone before making any attempt to board the ship,” she said.

In September last year, the vessel MV New Diamond carrying 270,000 tonnes of crude oil was caught fire off the eastern coast.