After a dramatic evening and many hours of sailing, the Stena Scandica ferry has safely arrived at the port of Nynäshamn in Sweden. On Tuesday morning, Swedish television showed how two tugboats helped the ship enter the port. On the ferry with 299 people on board – including 241 passengers – which was on its way from Ventspils in Latvia to Sweden, a fire broke out in a refrigerated container on the car deck on Monday afternoon.
The fire was quickly extinguished, but caused a power failure, so that the ship drifted towards the Swedish island of Gotland in strong winds in the evening. A race against time began. The rescue workers first brought families with children and the elderly off board with helicopters.
“You can explain that to the adults, but it was a little more difficult with the sometimes very small children,” rescuer John Jonsson told the Swedish tabloid Expressen. In a strong wind, the children were pulled up into the helicopter in a kind of bag. “We always sent an adult up first and then the child so there was someone who could take it and calm it down.”
Around 30 people were dropped off on the Gotland ferry M/S Visby, which had rushed to the ship’s aid. During the night the ferry with the exhausted but also relieved passengers arrived in the port of Visby on the island. “It was a very tough day,” Viesturs Zirins, a Latvian passenger who had been on the Stena Scandica, told Swedish radio. “But the rescue workers did the best job.”
Shortly before the Goland coast, the crew managed to avert the danger and got two engines running. The evacuation was halted at nightfall. The ferry then set off towards its destination late Monday evening at a slow pace – accompanied by a tugboat, the coast guard and a sea rescue ship.
On Tuesday morning, the approximately 270 people remaining on board had solid ground under their feet again. They should first be accommodated in a hotel to recover, Swedish broadcaster SVT reported. Crisis helpers are also on the spot. The authorities now want to investigate how the fire on the ferry, which was built in 2005, could have happened. You also have to assess if and when the ferry can run again.