Ship explosions, fires and sinking reported in the weekend

Ship explosions aboard two ships in Asian waters resulted in two crew members dead and nine others injured. Moreover, a laden bunker vessel sunk off Tunisia while grounded.

Product tanker explosion

The product tanker Chuang Yi suffered an explosion on Saturday, April 15 while on its way to Taiwan. After the blast, reported at around 16.00 hrs local time, the vessel caught fire in waters 300 km east of Hong Kong. Note that 13 crew members were aboard the vessel at the time of the incident. Unfortunately, 1 person died and another 6 got injured. But, the rest 6 crew members were not harmed.

In quick response, the Hong Kong authorities dispatched 2 helicopters to rescue the crew on board the Panama-registered ship.

Containership explosion

Meanwhile, the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) reported ship explosions on the 519 TEU feeder containership General Romulo. The vessel caught fire on Sunday, April 17 in central Philippine waters. As a result, the incident left 1 dead and 3 injured.

Fortunately, the coast guard managed to rescue 19 of 20 crewmembers and brought them to safety on the shoreline for medical assistance. However, the body of the last crew member was still onboard the vessel.

“The responding team was unable to retrieve him due to the magnitude of fire prevailing on the vessel,”

Philippine Coast Guard (PCG)

Bunker tanker sinking

The Equatorial Guinea-flagged Xelo sank on Saturday, April 16 morning in the Gulf of Gabes. Note that, the vessel has settled on its side at almost 20 m depth.

Reportedly, the bunker vessel was sailing from Egypt to Malta when it went down after having encountered bad weather on Friday evening. Above all, no crew died in the incident.

Moreover, the Turkish-operated vessel is a 1,000DWT bunker tanker carrying around 750-1000 mt of diesel fuel. On Sunday, divers who inspected the hull of the tanker detected no leaks.

“The situation is not dangerous, the outlook is positive, the ship is stable because luckily it ran aground on sand,”

Rabie Majidi, transport minister

There are minimal leaks, which are not even visible to the naked eye and fortunately the oil is evaporating, so there should not be a disaster in the Gulf of Gabes

Mohamed Karray, regional government spokesman

An operation to siphon off the fuel will get underway this week. Booms are in place around where the vessel sank.

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