Firefighting effort ends on stricken containership in Arabian Sea

The Indian Coast Guard has confirmed that has extinguished all known fires on a foreign-flagged commercial vessel that had suffered an onboard explosion, leaving one crewmember dead, in the Arabian Sea late last week.

The coast guard said the firefighting effort on the Panama-registered containership Maersk Frankfurt entered its fifth day on Tuesday, July 23. However, the service assured that major fires on board have been successfully doused despite the prevailing extreme monsoon conditions in the waters approximately 13 nautical miles west of New Mangalore.

Salvors have also already begun boarding the damaged ship as coast guard vessels remain in the area, ready to respond to any fire reflash or oil spills. The coast guard has meanwhile maintained that evacuation is not required.

Initial reports stated that the blast on Maersk Frankfurt was caused by an electrical short. The resulting blaze then spread across the ship including its cargo of containers, some of which are laden with hazardous chemicals such as benzene and sodium cyanate, according to the manifest.

The ship, which was delivered only this year, was transporting containers from Mundra in Gujarat to Sri Lanka's capital of Colombo when the explosion occurred on Friday. The only fatality among the 21-strong crew has been identified as a Filipino national, who was found lifeless on the vessel's lashing bridge shortly after the flames began to spread.

White smoke has reportedly been emanating from some of the ship's cargo of 1,154 containers. However, the coast guard claims that no major fires have reignited since Tuesday.

The salvors that are on board the ship have begun surveying the damage. The coast guard said it will assist the salvors as part of containment and recovery operations.