A 144-meter bulk carrier registered in Liberia, carrying chemicals or liquid petroleum products, ran aground near the St. Catherine locks, in the St. Lawrence Seaway.
Posted at 3:46 p.m.
The ship, the Chem Hydra, suffered engine failure while entering lock number 2 at around 1 a.m. It then drifted to ground in a shallow area. The ship would pose no threat to the environment at this stage, said St. Lawrence Seaway spokesman Nicolas Poirier-Quesnel.
“There is no water ingress or apparent pollution” from the hull of the ship, which was built in 2009 according to several shipping benchmark sites.
“It is a double-hull liquid bulk carrier, which is therefore very safe,” adds Mr. Poirier-Quesnel.
The crew is safe and sound. The building was, according to the reference sites, coming from Trinidad and Tobago, an oil and natural gas producing country, and was due to go to Hamilton.
Its grounding through the seaway blocked traffic. A bailout operation is “in the planning stage,” said the Seaway spokesperson. Two tugboats, theOcean Intrepid and theOcean Pierre-Julien, are currently on hand to organize the operation, says Michael Folsom, a citizen of the State of New York who takes care of the Seaway Ship Watchers Network, a site specializing in news dealing with the seaway. Divers will also be dispatched to the site to participate in the operation. According to some reference sites, the boat has a draft of eight meters and a gross capacity of 13,000 tons.
According to the specialized site Seaway Ship Watchers, maritime traffic is immobilized between Montreal and Salaberry-de-Valleyfield in both directions of the Seaway. At least three vessels are currently believed to be stranded in the Seaway due to the accident.