The start of the towing of the burning cargo ship off the coast of the Netherlands is expected on Saturday, July 29, said the Dutch authorities, who have been trying for several days to prevent an ecological disaster. The freighter, flying the Panamanian flag, was carrying 3,783 new cars, including 498 electric vehicles, according to the K Line transportation company which chartered the vessel.
The move to a temporary new position on the Fremantle Highway “is expected to take fourteen hours”, Ilze Rokven, a spokeswoman for the Dutch National Institute for Water Management (Rijkswaterstaat), told Agence France-Presse (AFP). . The ship must be moved 16 kilometers north of the island of Schiermonnikoog, a few tens of kilometers from its last official position located 23 kilometers from the coast of the island of Terschelling.
“The towing is expected to take place today”, but it “has not started yet”, Ms Rokven said on Saturday, as an AFP correspondent saw the vessel moving around. 2:30 p.m. Eventually, the authorities hope to tow the ship to a port, but the start of the trip depends in particular on the development of smoke, the weather forecast, the tide and the current.
Fire subsided, one crew member died
“The ship is (…) still intact below the waterline and does not tilt,” Rijkswaterstaat said on Friday, noting that the temperature on board the ship had dropped sharply and the intensity of the fire had decreased. An oil response vessel is near the freighter “as a precaution”, according to the Rijkswaterstaat. “No direct consequences for the Wadden Islands, its inhabitants and nature are expected,” said the Dutch agency. The Terschelling and Schiermonnikoog islands are part of a group of eight Dutch islands straddling the Wadden Sea and the North Sea, in the north of the Netherlands. The Wadden Sea, listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, has a rich diversity of more than ten thousand aquatic and terrestrial species.
Four rescuers managed to get on the cargo ship for the first time on Friday to establish a more robust connection with the tug. The day before, Thursday, operations to put out the fire had been suspended to prevent the ship from being destabilized due to the amount of water entering.
The cause of the fire, first reported Tuesday shortly before midnight, is unknown. According to the Japanese owner of the freighter, the Shoei Kisen Kaisha group, quoted by the Dutch public broadcaster NOS, one of the electric cars on board could be the source of the fire. One of the twenty-three crew members evacuated died, several were injured.
