Blaze extinguished on oil tanker off Sri Lanka

A huge fireplace on a oil tanker off Sri Lanka’s cruise has been extinguished, the island nation’s navy said Sunday, as worldwide salvage experts started to assess the wound over fears of an environmental misfortune if there may be a leak.

The Panamanian-registered Unique Diamond, carrying over 270,000 tonnes of unpleasant and diesel, used to be en-route from Kuwait to the Indian port of Paradip when it issued a misfortune call Thursday after an engine room explosion that killed a Filipino crew member.

Sri Lanka’s navy chief Nishantha Ulugetenna said the fireplace on the tanker, which the navy chief and the Indian coastguard got beneath alter on Friday—had in the destroy been set up out.

“The fireside has been entirely doused,” the vice admiral recommended newshounds in Colombo.

“The tanker’s (metal) plates are quiet very warm so there may be a menace of reigniting unique fires.”

The Indian coastguard tweeted that “no flame & smoke” used to be seen from the vessel.

The announcement came as Sri Lanka’s Catastrophe Management Centre said foreign salvage experts and insurance assessors had started analyzing the ship some 75 kilometres (46 miles) from the cruise.

Ten British and Netherlands mavens with ride in rescue operations, misfortune evaluate and exact session arrived earlier Sunday, the navy said.

Dutch company Smit Salvage had commissioned the experts and used to be also sending two tug boats from Singapore and Mauritius, the navy added.

The Indian coastguard, which deployed six ships, an airplane and a helicopter, added on Sunday that its air pollution alter vessel had arrived at the positioning in the Indian Ocean.

The rescue vessels are quiet dousing the tanker with water to forestall recent fires being ignited in heavy winds lashing the unique metal plates reach the burnt engine room.

The tanker had suffered a crack of its hull some 10 metres (33 toes) above the waterline as a outcomes of intense warmth from the fireside, officers said.

Authorities said there used to be no oil slick and the crack used to be no longer belief to be a catastrophic structural failure.

Sri Lanka’s Marine Atmosphere Protection Company has said that exact circulate will most likely be taken towards the householders, Liberian-registered Porto Emporios Shipping Inc, “may well quiet the worst happen and the ship breaks up”.

The vessel is increased than the Eastern bulk carrier MV Wakashio, which crashed into a reef in Mauritius in July leaking extra than 1,000 tonnes of oil into the island nation’s pristine waters.

© 2020 AFP