The freight ship “Morning Midas” with 3000 cars on board has dropped in the North Pacific. The ship had caught fire in early June. The crew was unable to extinguish the fire – she had left the ship by a lifeboat. Finally, the wreck smoking in front of the Aleuten island chain in Alaska.
The Ship management company Zodiac Maritime, based in London, reported the fall of the seriously damaged ship in an explanation. According to the company, rescue ships remain on site to search for signs of pollution or rubble.
“There is no visible pollution,” said a spokesman for the U.S. Coast guard in Alaska. “At the moment we also have ships on site to react to any dirt.”
According to the US Coast Guard, the fire, which broke out on June 3, had grasped and destroyed all the freighter’s charging decks. The 3000 vehicles, including almost 800 electric cars, have burned out. There were also around 300 tons of heavy oil on board.
Opportunities for a salvage were low
The freighter had left the Chinese Hafan Yanai at the end of May and was on his way to Mexico with his load. The 600 foot (183 meters) long “Morning Midas” was built in 2006 and drives under Liberian flag.
Most recently, tugs had been sent to the smoking wreck in order to tow it as far as possible. This has not occurred. The chances of a salvage were not particularly good anyway. Wind and Seegang were able to slip the charred remains of the cargo, the ship threatened to get and captivate.
Electric cars on board
There were around 70 fully electric and about 680 hybrid vehicles among the vehicles on board. As the coast guard and Zodiac Maritime announced, a large cloud of smoke at the rear of the ship was first seen, which went out from the deck loaded with electric vehicles.
E-cars are suspected of getting on fire and then having a hard time to be deleted. However, experts contradict this assumption and refer to current studies. The overall association of insurers reports of investigations that show that electric cars are statistically seen have no higher risk of fire than gasoline or diesel-powered vehiclesÂ
. The whole research on the question of how great the fire risk of electrical drives, Read here.
In a recently published report, a Dutch security authority called for an improvement in the emergency measures on the North Sea shipping routes, after a fatal fire on board a freighter, which transported 3000 cars, including almost 500 electric vehicles, from Germany to Singapore.