Praise for disaster management after ship fire

[caption id="attachment_192982" align="alignright" width="300"] A tugboat sprays the APL Austria, which was forced to dock in the Port of Ngqura after a fire broke out on board
Picture: Eugene Coetzee[/caption]

The APL Austria container ship which caught ablaze last month and was forced to dock at the Port of Ngqura has sailed to Durban for more repair work.

The 300m vessel had been docked at the port for more than a month while investigators and officials worked to establish the cause of the blaze.

Safe refuge was given to the ship in an attempt to avert a catastrophic maritime disaster when a fire started onboard while the vessel was about 30 nautical miles off Cape St Francis on February 12.

Transnet tugboats fitted with fire-fighting equipment worked for days, spraying containers on the deck of the ship in an attempt to fill the cargo hold, where the fire started, with water.