Reignited fire on oil tanker controlled: Navy

The disaster management teams deployed to control the fire onboard the MT New Diamond crude oil tanker, were able to successfully control the fire by this morning, the Navy said. The fire reignited on Monday due to bad weather and continued until this morning.

They said no flames or smoke have been observed from the ship so far, and the wreckage is being towed towards the deep sea using a tugboat.

The ship is now at 38 nautical miles off Sangamankanda Point east of Sri Lanka.

Meanwhile, efforts were made to minimize the impact to the marine environment after the diesel fuel stain was observed in the area about a kilometer away from the oil tanker last evening. Navy said a Dornier aircraft belonging to the Indian Coast Guard sprayed a special chemical in the area where the diesel stain was located.

Also, a Marine Research Ship belonging to the National Aquatic Resources Research and Development Agency (NARA) has arrived in the area and is conducting further investigations.

Furthermore, another team of the Sri Lanka Navy will leave for the location under the direction of Navy Commander Vice Admiral Nishantha Ulugetenna to inspect the situation, when the disaster situation is brought under control.

Meanwhile, to date, the SLAF has conducted 176 flying missions and dropped 440,000 liters of water on to the blazing tanker. In addition, SLAF helicopters also dropped a total of 4,500 Kg’s Dry Chemical Powder on to vital areas of the tanker.

The mission of dousing the fire which irrupted on board the Oil Tanker commenced on September 3 with the SLAF Beech King B200 aircraft being the first to arrive at the location of the tanker, the SLAF said.

During the 7 days of this operation, a Beech King B200 aircraft, MI-17 Helicopters, Bell 212 Helicopters and Y-12 aircraft have conducted 176 flying operations spanning over 100 flying hours.

"These daring flying operations were carried out amidst extreme adverse weather conditions and special mention should be made on the dropping of Dry Chemical Powder which was done at very low altitudes in order to achieve precise drops on vital areas of the tanker. This is the first and only occasion to date where SLAF helicopters has dropped DCP on to a blazing tanker," SLAF Spokesman Dushan Wijesinghe said.(Darshana Sanjeewa Balasuriya)

Pix by Nimalsiri Edirisinghe