Huge ship fire off Dutch coast blamed on electric vehicle

A ferocious ship fire that killed one person and sparked fears of an environmental disaster has been blamed on an electric vehicle.

A fierce blaze on a cargo ship carrying 4000 vehicles has killed one crewman and is still burning out of control off the coast of the Netherlands.

The inferno was reportedly sparked by an electric vehicle on board the ship Fremantle Highway.

The crew of 23 mostly Indian nationals initially tried to douse the flames but had to flee from the ferocious fire. One of them was killed and others were injured, with seven sailors jumping into the water, according to the captain of the Ameland lifeboat, Willard Molenaar.

The huge blaze is being blamed on an electric vehicle, although an investigation is still under way as to the cause. Picture: Netherlands Coastguard

The Panama-registered Fremantle Highway was underway to its final destination in Singapore when the fire broke out. Twenty-five of the 3783 vehicles on board were EVs.

The ship’s Japanese owners, Shoei Kisen Kaisha Ltd, told Dutch broadcaster NOS, “there is a good chance that the fire started with electric cars.”

“We are now trying to extinguish the fire in co-operation with the local authorities of (the) Netherlands, the salvor and the ship management company.”

The ship had 3,783 cars aboard when it caught fire off the Dutch coast. Early reports stated there were about 3000 vehicles aboard. Picture: Netherlands Coastguard

The International Maritime Organisation is planning new regulations for ships carrying electric vehicles with a growing number of ship fires blamed on the cars.

Dutch shipping organisation KVNR said it was also seeking tougher rules for the transportation of EVs.

“Last year there was a similar situation in the middle of the ocean, where the ship burned out completely and sank,” chairman Jan Valkier told Dutch News.

A major salvage operation has been launched but authorities fear the fire could burn for weeks and threaten nearby natural sites.

Local media reported that it was too dangerous to put firefighters aboard the ship.

“If you start filling the ship with water, you risk destabilising it and that could tip it over,” Netherlands Coast Guard spokesman Edwin Grammeman told broadcaster NOS.

A spokesman for the coast guard said it had stopped cooling the stricken cargo ship because of fears it could capsize.

“We have to make sure that no excess water ends up on board because that would damage its stability.”

The coast guard said it may resume cooling the ship later in the day. “The advantages have to be weighed up against the risks that cooling the ship brings,” it stated.

The Fremantle Highway was earlier close to Ameland, one of an archipelago of ecologically sensitive islands situated in the Waddensee area just north of the Dutch mainland.

It is now 16 kilometres north of the Wadden Sea island of Terschelling, with a tugboat being used to keep it away from shipping lanes, Dutch News reported.

Environmental risk

The Waddensee area spanning the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany has been declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site and has a rich diversity of more than 10,000 aquatic and terrestrial species.

This included more than 140 species of fish of which some 20 spent their entire life in the tidal areas along the islands’ famous mud flats.

The area also has a large seal and porpoise population.

The fire could take weeks to extinguish. Picture: Netherlands Coastguard

Should the Fremantle Highway sink, “it would be a disaster of the highest order,” the daily tabloid De Telegraaf said.

Salvage vessels were on the scene trying to put out the blaze and prevent the ship from sinking, the coastguard said.

A tug vessel has managed to attach a cable to the stricken ship to prevent it from drifting and blocking an important sailing route into Germany.

The Fremantle Highway is an 18,500-tonne car carrier ship and was sailing between Bremerhaven in Germany and Port Said in Egypt when the blaze broke out, according to the marinetraffic.com website.

‘Minimising damage’

The injured sailors, mainly from India, were taken to the northern towns of Lauwersoog and Eelde and left in the care of paramedics there.

“They all suffered from breathing problems, but none are in serious danger,” a safety official of the Drenthe region told AFP.

“The sailors were also treated for burns and broken bones,” she added. “Currently several parties including salvagers and the Dutch authorities are looking at minimising the damage as much as possible,” the Coast Guard said.

Holidaymakers enjoyed Ameland’s popular beaches on Wednesday and seemed unaffected by the drama on the ship, which could be spotted as a tiny dot on the horizon, surrounded by a cloud of smoke, an AFP correspondent said.

“It’s been there the whole day, but it’s barely been visible,” a lifeguard who asked not to be named told AFP.

Some 340 containers tumbled off one of the world’s largest container ships after a storm in the same area in early 2019, littering kilometres of pristine coastline with plastic and polystyrene.

Fires on car-carrying ships were increasingly the source of major losses, insurers said.

Last year the Felicity Ace sank of the coast of the Azores in the Atlantic Ocean with some 4,000 vehicles from German car maker Volkswagen on board.

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- with AFP