(Berlin) A collision between two cargo ships on Tuesday in the North Sea left one dead and four crew members remain missing, while sending divers to the wreckage of the sunken ship failed to locate them , according to the emergency services.
The accident, the causes of which remain unknown for the moment, occurred around 5 a.m. (11 p.m. Eastern time), 22 km southwest of the German island of Heligoland.
The shock sent one of the two ships to the bottom – a rare event – on which there were seven people. Two were rescued, one was found dead and four are missing, according to a provisional report from German maritime rescue (DGzRS).
Rescue operations lasted all day. Divers were sent into the wreckage of the ship which sank around 30 meters deep with the hope of locating the missing and “possibly looking for signs of life”.
“The search was unsuccessful. The divers were unable to obtain results,” emergency services said in a statement late in the afternoon, adding that “the arrival of a strong current prevented another attempt.”
Captain Michael Ippich, director of German maritime rescue (DGzRS), told the press that the water temperature was 12°C.
“At this temperature, you can survive about 20 hours, depending on your constitution and the clothes you wear,” he said.
PHOTO STRINGER, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
THE Poland
“Danger for the environment”
The collision sank the smaller of the two ships, the Verity, 91 meters long and 14 meters wide. This British-flagged cargo ship had left the German port of Bremen and was heading to Immingham, Great Britain.
It was loaded with steel and had on board approximately 1300 m3 of fuel, said Robby Renner, head of the emergency services in Cuxhaven (northwest Germany), who did not rule out “a danger to the environment”.
Twice as large, the second cargo ship, 190 meters long and flying the flag of the Bahamas, was coming from the German port of Hamburg and was heading to La Coruña, Spain. With 22 people on board, the Polandwhich belongs to the Polish shipowner Polsteam, remained afloat.
He took in “a Filipino sailor”, a survivor of the Verityduring the rescue operations in which he participated, said Polsteam spokesperson Krzysztof Gogol.
The maritime area of the accident is swept by winds which blow at a speed of 6 on the Beaufort scale, in a sea with waves three meters high.
The cruise ship Ionawhich is owned by P&O Cruises, headquartered in Great Britain, is also in the area and providing support.
“We asked the ship Iona to stay on site, because it can take care of people medically,” declared the spokesperson for German maritime rescue, Christian Stipeldey.
The North Sea was the scene of a major maritime accident at the beginning of August, off the coast of the Netherlands: a cargo ship caught fire with hundreds of electric cars on board and the fire raged for days.
The boat was finally able to be towed to a Dutch port. Emergency services had averted an ecological disaster near the Wadden Sea, classified as a world heritage site by UNESCO, particularly for the richness of its fauna and flora.
According to the latest report from insurer Allianz published in May, collisions were the second cause of incidents involving cargo ships on the world’s seas in 2022, i.e. 280 collisions out of a total of more than 3,000 incidents. But few collisions are serious enough to result in a loss of the boat: 38 cargo ships were fatally damaged last year, four due to collisions.