Marine

Citation

(2008), "Marine", Disaster Prevention and Management, Vol. 17 No. 4. https://doi.org/10.1108/dpm.2008.07317dac.002

Marine

Article Type: Disaster database From: Disaster Prevention and Management, Volume 17, Issue 4

4 August 2006Anangel Splendour (Greece)

The 24 fishermen on board Sea Harvest deep sea trawler Harvest TAmara “miraculously” escaped unscathed when their vessel collided with bulker Anangel Splendour about 25 kilometers off Saldanha at 20.30 Wednesday. The crew members were all rescued before the ship sank. The SA Maritime Safety Authority (Samsa) is conducting a full investigation into the cause of the accident. “There were 24 crew members on board, but fortunately and quite remarkably, no one was injured,” said Sea Harvest managing director Mike Norris. He said the entire crew was picked up by the ore carrier and other vessels. “They were all picked up and rescued, but the vessel sank. At the moment the crew is being bought to Saldanha and Samsa is busy interviewing our people and will issue a report on the outcomes. “The longest time our people were in the sea (following the collision) was an hour. A total of 19 crew members were rescued immediately after the accident and the other five, including the skipper, were rescued soon afterwards,” said Norris. He said the ship’s sinking was a major loss to Sea Harvest but they were thankful that no one was injured in the ordeal. Norris declined to allow interviews with the crew. He said they were from the Saldanha and Vredenburg area. Head of Samsa in Saldanha, Andre van Niekerk, said he had deployed a team to carry out an inspection and to conduct interviews with the crews involved. Samsa acting chief executive Carl Briesch said it was a “miracle” that not a single crew member was injured. He said they are still at the early stage of their investigation in terms of the Merchant Shipping Act, and it would take about two to three months until a full report on the incident is released. “It will depend on the complexity (of the accident). At the moment details are very sketchy. Anangel Splendour was carrying full cargo of coal from Richards Bay to Europe,” said Briesch.

17 August 2006Queen of the North (Canada)

The investigation into the sinking of passenger ro/ro Queen of the North has revealed that passenger manifest procedures were lacking. A report from the Transportation Safety Board said shore side personnel prepared a manifest according to company procedures that recorded the number of passengers that should have been on board the vessel. However, no physical head count of passengers was done as they boarded the vessel and names of passengers were not recorded. “During and following the abandonment of the vessel, those responsible for ensuring that everyone had been accounted for had difficulty establishing the total count, reconciling that count against the recorded information and identifying those who were missing,” wrote TSB official Marcel Ayeko in a letter to Transport Canada. Although it was initially reported that everyone was accounted for following the sinking, it was later discovered that two passengers were missing. The couple were never found and are presumed drowned. Since the sinking, BC Ferries has updated its passenger reservation system for the northern routes to create a manifest listing passengers’ names. Ayeko recommended that current Transport Canada regulations regarding manifests be reviewed to ensure more accurate information is available during an emergency on Canadian ferries.

22 August 2006Scandinavian Star (Bahamas)

Reports suggest that there will be no new investigation by the Danish authorities into the cause of the fatal fire on board the ferry Scandinavian Star in spite of allegations in the local press of a bungled police investigation following the accident. While the Danish parliament legal sub-committee is understood to have considered launching a fresh investigation it is now believed to have ruled it out, although the committee was unavailable to comment yesterday. Media reports in Denmark accused the Norwegian police of manipulating evidence given by a passenger following the 1990 accident in which 158 people lost their lives. The allegations centered on an eyewitness identification of a man police believed to be an arsonist. The Scandinavian Star, under charter to Danish VR Da-No Line, was on a voyage from Oslo to Frederikshavn when a fire broke out on board in the early hours of April 7, 1990. The fire spread very rapidly, with many passengers being trapped in their cabins. Toxic gases produced by materials used on the vessel were believed to account for many of the deaths. The major shareholder of VR Da-No, a board director and the master of the vessel, were each found guilty of being responsible for inadequate security arrangements on the Scandinavian Star by a Danish court in 1992. This was the first time that jail sentences had been given for a violation

10 September 2006Al Moubarak (Comoros)

Following Navigation Warning, timed 12.07, UTC, September 10: Vessel Al Moubarak, 45 meters, 75 persons on board, overdue Comoros Island, last known position lat 13 39S, long 44 58E at 0430, UTC, September 9. Red flare sighted in lat 13 00S, 44 20E at 1540, UTC, same day.

11 September 2006

A Comorian ship carrying 53 passengers sank on its way from Madagascar to Comoros and there were at least 22 survivors, a police source said today. The Al Moubarak left the Madagascan port of Mahajanga on Friday (September 8) bound for the Comorian capital of Moroni, Roland Andreas, director of investigations at Madagascar’s state secretariat for public security, said. “We lost contact with the boat when it was between the islands of Moheli and Mayotte,” he said, adding that 17 of the passengers were Malagasy citizens. French sailors, requested to help by the Comorian government, found one survivor before rescuing a further 21 from a lifeboat, he said. They then found another lifeboat, but it was not clear how many passengers were in it, he said. A senior official at the Comorian Transport Ministry told Reuters that the vessel had been due to arrive in Moroni on Saturday, and that the French sailors were based on the nearby island of Mayotte. The type of ship and the reason for its loss were not immediately known.

12 September 2006

Thirty-three people are missing after Unknown Al Moubarak sank in the Indian Ocean in bad weather. Of the 76 people on board, 43 people were rescued after the boat sank on Saturday (September 9). The boat may have been overloaded, a possible reason for the sinking. The commander and three crew members of the vessel were taken into police custody for questioning. The rescue effort was led by officials from Reunion Island, which contributed three boats. Five people are still in hospital with fatigue. Search efforts continue.