Fire aboard cargo ship off Victoria’s shore prompts evacuation of 16 crew members
Several crew members
were evacuated from the cargo ship off Victoria’s shore that has shipping
containers aboard – some containing hazardous materials – that were still on
fire going into Sunday.
The same vessel had 40 containers fall off of it west of
Vancouver Island on Friday.
The Canadian Coast Guard told Black Press Media that around
11 a.m. on Saturday, they received a report that a fire had broken out in
damaged shipping containers aboard the MV Zim Kingston. The vessel is currently
anchored in Constance Bank and could be seen – with smoke arising from it –
from Victoria’s shore on Saturday afternoon.
The Coast Guard said 10 containers are currently on fire
aboard the ship, including two holding 52,080 kilograms of xanthates (Potassium
Amylxanthate), which the Guard called hazardous materials. Two Coast Guard
boats evacuated 16 crew members from the ship for their safety and the safety
of responders. Those crew members were taken to Ogden Point.
An Incident Command Post has been set up to manage the
situation as the fire remained a “dynamic event” as of 11 p.m, but the ship
itself was not on fire at that time. A late-Saturday statement from the Command
Post said five crew members are still on the ship and fighting the fire.
There’s currently no safety risk to people on shore, but the situation will
continue to be monitored, the statement said.
A navigational warning said an exclusion zone of one mile of
the ship has been established, that “the ship is on fire and expelling toxic
gas” and “two fallen containers are floating in the vicinity of the vessel.” An
earlier warning notified other ships that an exclusion zone of half a nautical
mile was in effect around the Zim Kingston due to the danger of falling
containers.
The United States Coast Guard on Friday afternoon said crews
were monitoring about 40 adrift shipping containers west of the Strait of Juan
de Fuca’s entrance after they had fallen off the vessel. The containers fell
when the ship listed to its side due to rough seas, the U.S. Guard said. In an
update a few hours later, 35 of the containers had been located. A helicopter
from the Coast Guard’s Port Angeles air station located and captured images of
the containers in the water on Friday evening.
The U.S. Coast Guard on Saturday was tracking the original
40 containers that plunged into the water. The containers are approximately 12
nautical miles off the west coast of Vancouver Island, near Bamfield, the
Command Post statement said. The weather on Sunday could make the recovery
effort challenging, it added.
The ship’s owner has contracted Resolve Marine Group for
salvage operations, including fire fighting and recovering the containers.
“Resolve Marine has mobilized two vessels that were
currently local, the Maersk Tender and Maersk Trader, which have been
contracted as part of the response. Crews are expected to be on site on Sunday.
A hazmat crew from Vancouver is also mobilizing,” the statement said.
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