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Maersk Honam chemical fire contained

The fire on containership Maersk Honam was contained by the firefighting operations on Friday while the four missing crew still have not been found.

The Indian Coast Guard has suggested the men may well be trapped inside the ship.

The 15,000 teu vessel caught fire on Tuesday evening when it was en route from Singapore to Suez.

Maersk said the evacuated crew from the burnt ship are now in India. So far one crew member is confirmed dead and another two are reported to be in a critical condition, likely from smoke inhalation or burns.

Maersk officials have said it is still too early to determine the cause of the fire or the impact to the vessel or cargo, the Indian Coast Guard classified it as a “chemical fire”.

Hundreds of containers are thought to have been destroyed in the inferno.

Jason Jiang

Jason is one of the most prolific writers on the diverse China shipping & logistics industry and his access to the major maritime players with business in China has proved an invaluable source of exclusives. Having been working at Asia Shipping Media since inception, Jason is the chief correspondent of Splash and associate editor of Maritime CEO magazine. Previously he had written for a host of titles including Supply Chain Asia, Cargo Facts and Air Cargo Week.

Comments

  1. Safety or savings? Hazardous products must be under professional control always. Material losses are not significant nor comparables whit the loss of crew lives. Why are so close crew and dangerous goods areas?

    1. A lot of people have been assiduously leafing through the IMDG Code to try to find and answer to this. The answer that most people seem to come up with is that the fire probably started in non-declared or mis-declared DG, something that Maersk, to their credit have been particularly keen on “naming and shaming”. But certainly the everyday habit of the industry is to interpret “on deck and away from” as “on number one hatch”..

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