Blaze aboard ship extinguished

Several containers still smouldering amid salvage and mop-up operations

Salvage and mop-up operations are in full swing at the Port of Ngqura as three days of fighting a fire on board the APL Austria came to an end yesterday. The 300m container vessel docked at the port on Monday following a distress call.

Since then, smoke has billowed from the vessel while several teams of firefighters and fire specialists worked around the clock to extinguish the blaze.

But port officials confirmed yesterday that the fire in the ship’s hull and on its deck had been extinguished.

Due to the amount of water used to extinguish the fire, the cargo hold from where the fire originated was filled with water that reached a height of 12m – equivalent to that of four containers.

An international hazardous fire expert from London, and five fire technicians from Austria were flown in earlier this week to assess the damage.

While the exact amount of damage is unknown, experts confirmed that the ship’s structure remained intact as the fire was confined to only one section of its hull.

Transnet management confirmed that both the mop-up and salvage operations would continue all week.