Fresh explosions on burning ship stall naval op off Kolkata port

A naval operation to take a burning cargo ship deeper into sea from near Kolkata port had to be abandoned after four fresh explosions on it.

The four marine commandos (Marcos) of the Indian Navy and four officers of the ship, MV SSL Kolkata, who were winched down from a helicopter for the operation, however, managed to anchor the ship that had been drifting since it caught fire on Wednesday night.

The ship, carrying 10,683.51 metric tonne of cargo in 464 containers from Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh to Kolkata port, caught fire after an explosion in one of the containers.

The 22-member crew, which tried to douse the fire, were rescued by the coast guard on Thursday morning and taken to Haldia port in east Midnapore district.

Navy helicopters carried the Marcos team from Visakhapatnam to the air force station Kalaikunda in Midnapore from where the operation was coordinated on Saturday morning, SK Dey, naval officer-in-command, INS Netaji, said in Kolkata.

“The commandos entered the burning ship armed with thermal imaging devices and other equipment. Four officers of MV SSL Kolkata were later winched down. They managed to start the engine so that the ship could be taken further away from the coastline. However, while the operation was on, there were four successive explosions. The operation had to be stopped but the team managed to lower the anchor before evacuation,” said Dey.

Though the fire was still raging, the ship was anchored 18 nautical miles from the Bengal coastline. Had it continued to drift, the ship could have come close to the Sundarban Tiger Reserve or entered Bangladesh waters.

The last images indicated that the fire had covered almost 70% of the cargo area. However, there was no sign of oil spill till 11.30 am on Saturday when the commandos left the ship.