Middle East

MOL Comfort stern sinks

Dubai: The stern of the stricken containership MOL Comfort sank at around midday yesterday around 200 miles off Yemen in waters 4,000 m deep. The ship’s owner, Japan’s Mitsui OSK Lines (MOL) said about 1,700 containers sank with this section of the vessel. Some are confirmed floating near the site.

About 1,500 metric tons of fuel oil was estimated to be aboard in the tanks of the aft part, MOL said.  

“We have reported this fact to Indian authorities while we are keeping patrol boats in the area to monitor the situation of oil leakage and floating containers,” MOL said in a release yesterday.

The fore part is being towed towards the coastline. 

The five-year old, 7,000 teu containership split in two on June 17 as it hit a patch of bad weather. MOL has said it will strengthen the hulls of six sister ships of the MOL Comfort. Investigations continue in to how the ship could have suffered such massive structural damage. Debate and conjecture on the causes can be found at GulfShip News’s LinkedIn group HERE.  [28/06/13]

 

 

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