(Montreal) The fire aboard the container ship off the Canada-U.S. Pacific coast subsided on Monday and showed no visible flames, while containers that escaped at sea on Friday are not expected to make landfall, guards said. -Canadian coasts.
“It seems that the containers that were burning are now only smoking,” Deputy Incident Commander Mariah McCooey told a press conference, adding that the flames of the fire are no longer visible and the situation “is going to be fine. really good “.
“For now, strong winds and heavy swells continue to prevent rescue teams from boarding the ship, but there could be a lull later in the evening,” the Canadian Coast Guard said. in a tweet Monday afternoon.
On Saturday, 10 containers carrying unidentified goods caught fire on the Zim Kingston as the ship waited for access to Vancouver Harbor, forcing the evacuation of 16 crew members. The day before, 40 containers had escaped into the Pacific Ocean due to rough seas caused by bad weather.
“The containers are currently drifting about 12 nautical miles off Vancouver Island, so we believe they will not reach land,” said Gillian Oliver, head of planning at the incident command post. , established to respond to this emergency.
No one was injured and no risk was identified for marine species, according to Canadian authorities.
The Canadian Coast Guard is working with their American counterparts to locate lost containers offshore.
Some were carrying hazardous materials like potassium amylxanthate, a chemical used in the mining industry “that is not expected to be persistent in the environment or have acute aquatic consequences,” according to provincial incident commander Zachary Scher.
The Canadian Coast Guard also says it is working with the ship’s owner, the Cypriot company Danaos, to determine what each container was carrying.
Despite the storm that is sweeping down the region and complicating the work of emergency teams, experts have been carrying out air quality analyzes since Sunday afternoon and environmental specialists are monitoring the potential impacts on the ecology. Marine.
The cause of the fire on the container ship is still undetermined, Canadian authorities said.