Ship carrying 3,000 vehicles ablaze off Dutch coast
One crew member succumbs to flames as Fremantle Highway catches alight en route to Egypt
A fire blazed on a ship off the Dutch coast with nearly 3,000 vehicles on board on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring several others, the coastguard said.
About 350 of the vehicles on board were Mercedes-Benz cars.
The fire on the 199m Panama-registered Fremantle Highway, which was en route from Germany to Egypt, started on Tuesday night and resulting in several crew members jumping overboard.
Rescue ships sprayed the burning vessel with water to cool it down, but using too much water risked its sinking, the Dutch coastguard said. A salvage vessel was attached to stop it drifting.
“The fire is still not controlled. It’s a hard fire to extinguish, possibly because of the cargo the ship was transporting,” said Edwin Versteeg, a spokesperson for the Dutch Department of Waterways and Public Works.
Shoei Kisen Kaisha, the Japanese ship leasing company that manages the Fremantle, said it was working with Dutch authorities to extinguish the blaze.
The coastguard said on its website that the cause of the fire was unknown, but a coastguard spokesperson had earlier said it started near an electric car.
The coastguard said the vessel, which had departed from the port of Bremerhaven, had been towed out of shipping lanes and could sink. It was 27km north of the Dutch island of Ameland when the fire started.
The blaze spread so quickly that seven crew members jumped overboard, said Willard Molenaar of the Royal Dutch Rescue Company, who was among the first at the scene.
Molenaar told Dutch broadcaster NOS some people were injured while jumping the long way down into the water, and one crew member had died in the flames.
“There was lot of smoke and the fire spread quickly, much faster than expected,” he said. “The people on board had to get off quickly ... We fished them out of the water.”
A helicopter airlifted the remainder of the 23-strong crew. The injured were being treated for breathing problems, burns and broken bones, Dutch authorities said.
Coastguard spokesperson Edwin Granneman said salvage experts were trying to work out next steps.
Earlier this month, two New Jersey firefighters were killed and five injured battling a blaze on a cargo ship that was carrying hundreds of vehicles.
A fire destroyed thousands of luxury cars on a ship off the coast of Portugal's Azores islands in February last year.
Reuters