Fire on cargo ship in B.C. under control but not known how many containers burned
Officials don't yet know how many containers burned aboard a cargo ship in a still-smouldering blaze off the coast of Victoria, a spokesman for the Canadian Coast Guard said Sunday.
The flames initially spread to 10 containers after another 40 fell overboard in choppy waters on Friday, but JJ Brickett said the fire on the MV Zim Kingston was mostly under control by Sunday afternoon.
“Looking at the actual images, it's a pile,” Brickett told a virtual news conference. “The containers burned down to basically their shell and then collapsed on top of one another.”
Provincial and federal officials are working with all the First Nations on the west coast of Vancouver Island while investigating the fire aboard the ship, he said.
Brickett said the location of some of the containers that landed in the ocean is being monitored by helicopter, but efforts to retrieve them can't start until after a break in a storm that is forecast to worsen until Monday.
Efforts to read labels on the downed containers in order to try and identify their contents have not been fruitful and officials are trying to account for all of them, Brickett said.
“One of the objectives for the response is 100 accountability for all of these containers - where they are, what happened to them, what was in them. And to the extent that we can, how can we recover them.”
The MV Zim Kingston had experienced some damage as it approached Vancouver and the crew were in contact with the Canadian Coast Guard and Transport Canada, he said, adding the vessel was assessed off the Strait of Juan de Fuca where it was anchored for repairs and to await further contact with the latter agency.
He said Transport Canada inspectors will be aboard the ship after the “emergency phase” of securing the safety of the vessel and those still on it, and that its Greece-based owner is providing assistance.
Earlier Sunday, the coast guard said in a tweet that the hull of the MV Zim Kingston had been cooled overnight by a tugboat spraying it with water. Applying cold water directly to the burning containers was not an option because two of them contained 52,000 kilograms of a hazardous material identified as potassium amylxanthate.
It said the blaze aboard the ship about eight kilometres off the coast of Victoria posed a significant risk to mariners but not people on shore.
The coast guard said it received word late Saturday morning about a fire in 10 damaged containers aboard the vessel, which was anchored in Constance Bank, B.C.
It noted the ship itself was not on fire, but said in a tweet that an emergency zone had been doubled to two nautical miles around the Zim Kingston.
The Joint Rescue and Coordination Centre in Victoria said 16 crew members were safely taken off the ship, while five others, including the captain, remained on board at their own behest.
Canadian Coast Guard spokeswoman Michelle Imbeau said an incident command post led by the agency on behalf of the federal and B.C. governments, as well as First Nations representatives, was co-ordinating a multi-agency response to the fire.
She said the command post was also working with the U.S. Coast Guard to monitor the 40 containers that fell overboard from the Zim Kingston in rough seas on Friday and were floating about 12 nautical miles off the west coast of Vancouver Island, near Bamfield, B.C.
The coast guard said a hazardous materials crew from Vancouver was mobilizing and the owner of the Zim Kingston had contracted the U.S.-based Resolve Marine Group for salvage operations, including firefighting and recovery of the containers.
Resolve Marine had mobilized two vessels that were expected to be on site Sunday.
Peter Lahay, national coordinator of the International Transport Workers Federation, said he contacted Transport Canada on Friday and was told no crew members were hurt and that inspectors would board the ship when it got to Vancouver.
“In my view, after such an extraordinary container spill, marine safety inspectors should have been aboard that ship on arrival. If they had, perhaps we would have known about the fire, or potential fire, sooner,” he said.
However, Lahay said he believes the federal agency is woefully underfunded and short-staffed, and as a consequence, too few inspections take place.
“Canada needs to do a better job being resilient and being better able to respond to these things. We kind of wasted a day (Saturday) trying to figure out what to do to mitigate this fire, and we should have been more prepared,” he said.
The union has contacted the crew members brought ashore to Victoria to stay in local hotels to see if they need help, Lahay said.
“They came ashore without any clothes and we'll assess what we need to do to assist this crew,” he said of the “maritime disaster.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 24, 2021.
CTVNews.ca Top Stories
Two killed after collision with truck on Hwy. 417 near Limoges, Ont.
Ontario Provincial Police say two people were killed after a car and a transport truck collided in the westbound lanes of Highway 417 near Limoges, Ont. on Tuesday afternoon.
Houston braces for flooding to worsen in wake of storms
High waters flooded neighborhoods around Houston on Saturday following heavy rains that have already resulted in crews rescuing hundreds of people from homes, rooftops and roads engulfed in murky water.
Canadian doctor concerned new weight-loss drug Wegovy may be used inappropriately
As Wegovy becomes available to Canadians starting Monday, a medical expert is cautioning patients wanting to use the drug to lose weight that no medication is a ''magic bullet,' and the new medication is meant particularly for people who meet certain criteria related to obesity and weight.
What a U.S. farmworker’s case of bird flu tells us about tracking the infection
A U.S. farmworker who caught bird flu after working with dairy cattle in Texas appears to be the first known case of mammal-to-human transmission of the virus, a new study shows.
‘We made them safer and more fun’: Here’s what’s new about e-scooters
Electric scooters (e-scooters) have been gaining popularity in the capital and this season comes with some changes and updates.
Hulk Hogan, hurricanes and a blockbuster recording: A week in review of the Trump hush money trial
Crucial witnesses took the stand in the second week of testimony in Donald Trump's hush money trial, including a California lawyer who negotiated deals at the center of the case and a longtime adviser to the former president.
A Chinese driver is praised for helping reduce casualties in a highway collapse that killed 48
A Chinese truck driver was praised in local media Saturday for parking his vehicle across a highway and preventing more cars from tumbling down a slope after a section of the road in the country's mountainous south collapsed and killed at least 48 people.
Grandparents killed in wrong-way crash on Hwy. 401 identified
A 60-year-old man and a 55-year-old woman killed in a wrong-way crash on Highway 401 earlier this week have been identified by the Consulate General of India in Toronto.
Canadian Auger-Aliassime reaches first Masters final in Madrid with another walkover
Montreal's Felix Auger-Aliassime has advanced to his first ATP Masters final, and he hasn't had to play all that much tennis to do it.