2023-07-28 13:08:00
A spokesman for the Dutch Coast Guard previously said that the fire was probably caused by one of the electric cars on board. The vessel was heading from Germany via Egypt to Singapore. The ship was manned by 23 crew members, all from India. One person died in the fire, several were injured.
A spokesman for K Line in Britain said he could not provide much information about the exact cargo “due to non-disclosure agreements with car companies”. K Line does not own the ship, it rents the vessel from the Japanese Shoei Kisen Kaisha, writes RTL Nieuws.
It’s not immediately clear if that’s 498 all-electric cars or if hybrids are included in that number (with internal combustion engine and electric motor), writes public station NOS. Electric cars can continue to burn for a long time because of the battery. If such a car catches fire, it is difficult to extinguish the fire.
The threat of ecological disaster
There are several vessels around the ship that ensure its safety and stability. The ship is held together by a single steel rope, but it is not strong enoughso that it can pull her away.
It is precisely the overturning of the rule that the authorities perceive as a great ecological threat, because of this, the firefighting work has slowed down, according to the Bild server. Too much sea water could enter the boat.
“We are talking about temperatures of over 800 degrees. A freighter is not hermetically sealed like a container, and the fire is constantly fed by oxygen,” commented the press spokesman of the German firemen’s union, Tobias Thiele. “The only way to get a fire like this under control is to would mean briefly flooding the ship. But we would do that at the same time as an environmental disaster given the amount of cars, oil and ship oil itself.” described.
A fire engulfed a freight ship carrying nearly 3,000 cars off the coast of the Netherlands Wednesday.
At least one crew member died, the Dutch coast guard said pic.twitter.com/LqnBhVLDHL
— Bloomberg (@business) July 26, 2023
The ship is located in the Wadden Sea, which is an important site for migratory birds. “The accident poses a huge risk to the Wadden Sea. The sinking of a cargo ship with leaking fuel would be a disaster for the unique nature. An oil spill would have serious consequences, primarily for seabirds,” says the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
“If the leaking oil were to reach the coast, the animals and plants on the tidal flats and salt marshes would also be affected. An oil spill is always a bad event, but time is now critical: the breeding phase of many native bird species is not yet over, but at the same time migratory birds from the Arctic are already arriving in the Wadden Sea,” he added.
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