Cargo ship "Fremantle Highway", which had caught fire off the coast of the Netherlands, towed to the port of Eemshaven

The cargo ship which caught fire off the Netherlands on the night of July 25 to 26, with hundreds of electric cars on board, was towed Thursday August 3 to a Dutch port. The towing was able to start around 5 a.m. (local time) and “went without any problems”, confirmed the Dutch national institute for water management, the Rijkswaterstaat. At least seven sailors had jumped overboard when their freighter was damaged, and one of them died.

As onlookers watched, the blackened carcass of the Fremantle Highway arrived at the port of Eemshaven pulled by two tugs, and accompanied by a boat capable of recovering any oil spills at sea. Port workers then piled a wall of yellow containers around the docked ship, hiding it from public view, an Agence France-Presse reporter observed. According to local media, the ship will be able to remain in place until October 14.

Nearly 500 electric vehicles on board

The 18,500-ton cargo ship, flying the Panamanian flag, left the German port of Bremerhaven to reach Port Said in Egypt before heading back to Singapore, its final destination. It was carrying 3,783 new cars, including 498 electric vehicles, according to the K Line company which chartered the ship. Among the latter were BMWs, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi and Lamborghinis – a total loss likely to exceed 300 million euros, according to the Dutch press agency (ANP). One of the electric cars could be the cause of the fire.

Authorities feared an environmental disaster, as the cargo ship caught fire near an environmentally sensitive area. “We have ensured that the Wadden Sea and the Wadden Islands are not polluted and we are proud of that,” harbor master Pieter van der Wal told the ANP.

The situation seemed largely under control for several days, but the bad weather in the North Sea had raised new concerns. “There is no indication that a fire is still raging” and there is also no question of “any flow of liquids or other materials”, said in a letter to Parliament on Thursday the Minister for Infrastructure and of water management Mark Harbers.

Rich biodiversity

The Wadden Sea, which runs along a coastal region stretching from the Netherlands to Denmark, has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has a rich biodiversity of over 10,000 aquatic and terrestrial species. “The Wadden Sea escaped a major environmental catastrophe,” praised the Waddenvereniging, a local environmental organization. “However, we continue to be very concerned about shipping taking place north of the Wadden Islands,” she added in a statement.

By early 2019, some 340 containers from one of the world’s largest container ships had been hit by a storm in the region, littering miles of pristine coastline with plastic and polystyrene.