LONDON (AP) — A cargo ship hit a tanker transporting jet fuel for the U.S. military off eastern England on Monday, setting both vessels ablaze and sending fuel pouring into the North Sea.
All but one of the 37 crew of the two ships were brought safely ashore. One crew member from the cargo ship, Solong, was missing, the vessel’s owner Ernst Russ said in a statement.
The ship owner said “13 of the 14 Solong crew members have been brought safely (to) shore.” The owner of the fuel tanker said all 23 of its crew members were safe.
The two ships were still ablaze 12 hours after the collision, British coast guards said. They said they had ended the search for the missing crew member. They confirmed 36 others had been brought ashore, one of whom was hospitalized.
The collision triggered a major rescue operation by lifeboats, coast guard aircraft and commercial vessels in the foggy North Sea.
The British government said it was assessing “any counter-pollution response which may be required over the coming days.” The Marine Accident Investigation Branch was investigating the cause of the collision.
The U.S.-flagged chemical and oil products tanker MV Stena Immaculate was at anchor near the port of Grimsby on Monday morning after sailing from Greece, according to ship-tracking site VesselFinder. The Portugal-flagged container ship Solong was sailing from Grangemouth in Scotland to Rotterdam in the Netherlands when it struck the tanker’s side.
U.S.-based maritime management firm Crowley, which operates the Stena Immaculate, said the tanker “sustained a ruptured cargo tank containing Jet-A1 fuel,” when the container ship struck it, triggering a fire and “multiple explosions onboard,” with fuel released into the sea.
The Stena Immaculate was operating as part of the U.S. government’s Tanker Security Program, a group of commercial vessels that can be contracted to carry fuel for the military when needed.
The Solong’s cargo included sodium cyanide, which can produce harmful gas when combined with water, according to industry publication Lloyd’s List Intelligence. It was unclear if there had been a leak.
Britain’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency said the alarm was raised at 9:48 a.m. (0948 GMT). Humber Coast Guard asked vessels with firefighting equipment and those who could help with search and rescue to head to the scene about 155 miles (250 kilometers) north of London.
Video footage aired by British broadcasters and apparently filmed from a nearby vessel showed thick black smoke pouring from both ships.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s office said details of the collision and its cause “are still becoming clear.”
Abdul Khalique, head of the Maritime Center at Liverpool John Moores University, said it appeared the crew of the cargo ship had not been “maintaining a proper lookout by radar” as required by international maritime regulations.
Greenpeace U.K. said it was too early to assess the extent of any environmental damage from the collision, which took place near busy fishing grounds and major seabird colonies.
Scientists said the environmental impact might be less severe than with a spill of heavier crude oil.
“Whilst the images look worrying, from the perspective of the impact to the aquatic environment, it’s less of a concern than if this had been crude oil because most of the jet fuel will evaporate very quickly,” said Mark Hartl of the Center for Marine Biodiversity and Biotechnology at Scotland’s Heriot-Watt University.
Mark Sephton, professor of organic geochemistry at Imperial College London, said jet fuel disintegrates more quickly than crude oil, and warmer temperatures speed biodegradation.
“In the end, it all depends on the rate of introduction of fuel and the rate of destruction by bacteria,” he said. “Let’s hope the latter wins out.”
Associated Press journalist Krutika Pathi in London contributed.
