2023-07-28 09:51:12
There are about 500 electric cars on the burning freighter off the Dutch coast, far more than the 25 previously reported. The Dutch news agency ANP reported on Friday. She relies on information from the company K Line, which chartered the “Fremantle Highway” from the Japanese shipowner. In total there are 3,783 cars on the ship. It is unclear what this means for the development of fire.
Electric car batteries are more difficult to extinguish. The battery of an electric car may also have been the source of the fire. But that’s not confirmed yet.
The fire subsided on Friday, according to Coast Guard information. A Coast Guard spokeswoman said the temperature had also dropped. The freighter is now stable about 17 kilometers north of the Wadden Sea island of Terschelling. The ship is held in position via an emergency connection to a tugboat.
The “Fremantle Highway” caught fire on Wednesday night off the neighboring island of Ameland. The crew had been evacuated. One person died as a result. On Thursday, the burning ship had drifted slightly to the west up to Terschelling.
According to the coast guard, extinguishing work is still difficult. In the morning, a Coast Guard plane was supposed to take pictures and check the temperature again. Experts from the salvage company wanted to draw up a plan of how the ship could be towed.
An environmental catastrophe is feared in the specially protected Wadden Sea should the freighter sink, capsize or break apart. As a precautionary measure, a special ship for clearing heavy oil is moored right next to the “Fremantle Highway”.
According to an expert, contaminated water has already got into the sea because of the burning freighter in the North Sea. Kim Detloff, responsible for marine protection at the Nature Conservation Union (Nabu), told NDR Info: “In fact, the environmental disaster is already here.” There is already contaminated extinguishing and cooling water. According to Detloff, pollutants, toxins, heavy metals, plastics, batteries and oil burn.
“And these components are already getting into the ecosystem via the cooling water, so that there is local contamination,” said Detloff. However, that is no comparison to what could happen if the ship were to sink.
According to Detloff, there are currently three options for the emergency services: You can let the ship burn and hope that the fire will weaken. The freighter can be towed to a port of refuge, then fire crews go on board if necessary. Or you can let the ship run aground if it sinks. Attempts are currently being made to tow it further out to sea and remove it from the Wadden Sea. It’s a way to buy time.
According to the fire brigade, fighting fires on ships is particularly difficult. Several factors came together, said Dirk Flocke, head of the special task force for ship security at the Hamburg fire brigade. You are always dealing with metals that have a high thermal conductivity, hot air and smoke gases can hardly escape, the corridors are narrow and there are dangerous substances in ships. Added to this is the charge. “It’s always tight, it’s always hot.”
Flocke said that the crews of ships have a little fire protection training. However, with the equipment available, the crew only has a chance of successfully extinguishing fires that are starting. “They quickly reach their limits.” A car transporter is particularly problematic in the event of a fire. The decks were packed tightly with vehicles. You can’t get to the source of the fire with a hose. The question of whether electric cars are involved is no longer relevant in such a case.
Attempts are being made to cool the ship’s hull with water from the outside in order to maintain the strength of the steel as much as possible. “One definitely wants to keep the ship in such a condition that it continues to swim relatively stably.” However, the fire could not be extinguished in this way. When unloading ships, care must be taken not to pump in too much water, as this could lead to stability problems.
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