Coast Guard rushes to aid of fire-ravaged ship

A massive fire broke out Saturday on board the derelict cargo vessel M.V. Mol Comfort, which had snapped into two pieces June 17 off the coast of Yemen, officials said here.

The fire was noticed around 11 a.m. during a routine surveillance sortie by an Indian Coast Guard (ICG) aircraft, around 310 nautical miles form Mumbai, when the vessel was being towed to Port Sohar in Oman.

The ICG diverted its ship Samudra Prahari to monitor and render assistance to the MV Mol Comfort.

The ship had snapped into two June 17 and all the 26 crew aboard were rescued in a humanitarian mission by the ICG here.

The 316-metre long cargo container ship had broken into two and the crew was forced to abandon it as it started sinking off Yemen, around 840 nautical miles west of Mumbai in the Arabian Sea.

Battling severe weather conditions and six metre tall waves, the ICG Mumbai managed to rescue all the crew comprising 14 Filipinos and 12 Russians who had abandoned MV Mol Comfort when it was carrying a cargo of 4500 containers from Singapore to Jeddah.