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The authorities on Saturday continued to evaluate the best way to battle a fireplace that broke out two days in the past aboard a cargo ship that’s carrying practically 2,000 tons of lithium-ion batteries and was ordered to stay off the Alaskan coast.
The U.S. Coast Guard mentioned there have been no accidents to the 19 crew members aboard the vessel, Genius Star XI, and that it remained seaworthy.
The precise reason for the hearth was not recognized and stays underneath investigation. The Coast Guard was not instantly in a position to affirm who owns the vessel or say what different cargo it’s carrying. The ship’s level of origin and vacation spot have been unavailable.
The fireplace broke out in cargo holds the place lithium-ion batteries, which include extremely flammable supplies, have been being saved.
“These are very popular, very energetic fires,” mentioned Richard Burke, a professor of naval structure and marine engineering on the State College of New York Maritime Faculty. Such fires will be long-lasting and troublesome to place out, he added.
The Coast Guard ordered the vessel to stay two miles offshore from Dutch Harbor, Alaska, and officers established a one-mile security zone across the vessel all through the response effort.
A hearth occurred in two separate cargo holds, mentioned Lt. Cmdr. Michael Salerno, a spokesman for the seventeenth Coast Guard District, which covers 47,300 miles of shoreline all through Alaska and the Arctic.
Firefighting programs on the vessel extinguished one of many fires. Members of the crew sealed off the opposite cargo maintain and have been taking temperature readings, which have been regular as of Saturday, Commander Salerno mentioned.
There have been no indicators of warmth injury outdoors the cargo maintain, and the authorities plan to watch the temperature to see whether or not it continues to go down.
A staff of marine firefighting specialists who boarded the ship on Thursday to evaluate its situation discovered no indicators of structural deformation or blistering outdoors the compartment, the Coast Guard mentioned.
That the ship remains to be intact and afloat is sweet information for the setting, Professor Burke mentioned.
These ships can carry tons of of 1000’s of tons of cargo, comparable to silk blouses, beer, laptops and different business items, which might probably contaminate the ocean if the ship have been to sink.
“The ship additionally has gas,” he famous. “In case you lose the ship, the gas goes into the ocean as effectively.”
Whereas cargo ship fires are rare, they don’t seem to be unheard-of, Professor Burke mentioned.
In July, a cargo ship carrying practically 3,000 automobiles off the Dutch island of Ameland within the North Sea caught fireplace, killing one crew member and injuring 22 others.
In 2022, a cargo ship carrying about 4,000 automobiles, together with Porsches and Bentleys, caught fireplace 250 miles off the Azores and two weeks later ended up sinking.
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