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4 August 2023
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North Sea: One dead, several injured in cargo ship fire off Dutch coast
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A cargo ship carrying vehicles caught fire off the Dutch coast on Wednesday, 25 July 2023. Emergency services had received a call shortly after midnight local time reporting a fire on the Fremantle Highway, a Panama-registered vessel carrying some 3 000 vehicles, some 30 kilometres north of the Dutch island of Ameland.
The Dutch coastguard evacuated 23 crew members from a car-carrying freighter off the coast of the Netherlands early on Wednesday after a fire on board left at least one person dead and several injured.
"The crew tried to extinguish the fire themselves but failed. Unfortunately, one person died and several others were injured," the Dutch Coastguard said on its website.
At least seven crew members jumped overboard and were recovered from the water, while the others were rescued by helicopter.
The Fremantle Highway, an 18 500-ton cargo ship, had set sail from the German port of Bremerhaven for Port Said in Egypt, according to the marinetraffic.com website, which tracks maritime traffic worldwide.
The "fire is still raging on board", according to the coastguard, which added that the vessel was listing.
Rescue vessels are still on site to try to extinguish the flames and prevent the vessel from sinking, according to the Dutch national television service, NOS.
Specialised fire fighters had been deployed from Rotterdam by helicopter but the fire developed so quickly that it was not possible to let them on board. A tug, however, managed to attach a cable to the stricken vessel to prevent it from drifting and blocking an important shipping route to Germany, NOS reported.
"We are considering all scenarios," a coastguard spokesman told the national broadcaster.
The same spokesman said more than 400 electric cars were on board and one could have been the cause of the fire.
The injured sailors were taken to the northern towns of Lauwersoog and Eelde for treatment.
Fire continued to burn for a week
Tugboats towed a freight ship that burned for a week on the North Sea while carrying thousands of cars into a Dutch port on Thursday for salvaging, laying to rest fears that it could sink close to shipping lanes and a protected habitat for birds.
The Fremantle Highway was taken to the northern port of Eemshaven, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management said. A boat that has special booms to clean up oil spills accompanied the nearly 200-metre-long vessel as a precaution.
The ship with 3 784 new vehicles, including 498 electric ones, on board caught fire while travelling from the German port city of Bremerhaven to Singapore.
The fire put nerves on edge in the Netherlands and Germany, which shares the Wadden Sea with its neighbour.
The Environment Minister of Germany’s Lower Saxony state, Christian Meyer, thanked Dutch authorities for making a quick decision on what do with the Fremantle Highway. “With the decision, the nail-biting and the worry that the cargo ship could break apart and still lead to an environmental disaster in our inestimably valuable Wadden Sea hopefully will end,” Meyer said in a statement.
The island of Ameland, near which the Fremantle Highway is located, is one of the four Frisian islands in the Wadden Sea, north of the Netherlands.
The fire follows a similar incident on an Italian cargo ship carrying hundreds of vehicles earlier this month. Two fire fighters from the US state of New Jersey were killed in that fire.
The worst recent disaster off the busy Dutch coast dates back to December 2012, when the Bahamas-flagged cargo ship Baltic Ice, which was also carrying cars, collided with a container ship and sank. Eleven sailors were killed in the incident.
Sources: Euro News, Sky News
The Dutch coastguard evacuated 23 crew members from a car-carrying freighter off the coast of the Netherlands early on Wednesday after a fire on board left at least one person dead and several injured.
"The crew tried to extinguish the fire themselves but failed. Unfortunately, one person died and several others were injured," the Dutch Coastguard said on its website.
At least seven crew members jumped overboard and were recovered from the water, while the others were rescued by helicopter.
The Fremantle Highway, an 18 500-ton cargo ship, had set sail from the German port of Bremerhaven for Port Said in Egypt, according to the marinetraffic.com website, which tracks maritime traffic worldwide.
The "fire is still raging on board", according to the coastguard, which added that the vessel was listing.
Rescue vessels are still on site to try to extinguish the flames and prevent the vessel from sinking, according to the Dutch national television service, NOS.
Specialised fire fighters had been deployed from Rotterdam by helicopter but the fire developed so quickly that it was not possible to let them on board. A tug, however, managed to attach a cable to the stricken vessel to prevent it from drifting and blocking an important shipping route to Germany, NOS reported.
"We are considering all scenarios," a coastguard spokesman told the national broadcaster.
The same spokesman said more than 400 electric cars were on board and one could have been the cause of the fire.
The injured sailors were taken to the northern towns of Lauwersoog and Eelde for treatment.
Fire continued to burn for a week
Tugboats towed a freight ship that burned for a week on the North Sea while carrying thousands of cars into a Dutch port on Thursday for salvaging, laying to rest fears that it could sink close to shipping lanes and a protected habitat for birds.
The Fremantle Highway was taken to the northern port of Eemshaven, the Dutch Ministry of Infrastructure and Water Management said. A boat that has special booms to clean up oil spills accompanied the nearly 200-metre-long vessel as a precaution.
The ship with 3 784 new vehicles, including 498 electric ones, on board caught fire while travelling from the German port city of Bremerhaven to Singapore.
The fire put nerves on edge in the Netherlands and Germany, which shares the Wadden Sea with its neighbour.
The Environment Minister of Germany’s Lower Saxony state, Christian Meyer, thanked Dutch authorities for making a quick decision on what do with the Fremantle Highway. “With the decision, the nail-biting and the worry that the cargo ship could break apart and still lead to an environmental disaster in our inestimably valuable Wadden Sea hopefully will end,” Meyer said in a statement.
The island of Ameland, near which the Fremantle Highway is located, is one of the four Frisian islands in the Wadden Sea, north of the Netherlands.
The fire follows a similar incident on an Italian cargo ship carrying hundreds of vehicles earlier this month. Two fire fighters from the US state of New Jersey were killed in that fire.
The worst recent disaster off the busy Dutch coast dates back to December 2012, when the Bahamas-flagged cargo ship Baltic Ice, which was also carrying cars, collided with a container ship and sank. Eleven sailors were killed in the incident.
Sources: Euro News, Sky News
