After the accident of the giant freighter „MSC Zoe“, a command in the North Sea looks for the containers floating in the water – in the night on Wednesday more than 270 steel boxes fell from the freighter into the sea. The emergency services are running out of time: the steel boxes floating just below the water surface can be dangerous for cutter and coastal fishermen.
When containers drift just below the water surface, they can not be located by the radar of the ships. „The risk of collision is very high,“ said the spokesman for the German Fisheries Association, Claus Ubl, the dpa. In addition, fishing harnesses or nets could get caught in containers that have sunk to the bottom of the sea.
„In the worst case, this can lead to capsizing the ship,“ warned Ubl. So far, about 20 containers were spotted in German waters or located by sonar, it was said on Saturday. According to the Havariekommandos they could not be recovered yet. The weather situation complicates recovery with five-meter waves, a search from the air was not possible, it said.
Loaded with around 8,000 containers
According to investigations of the water police, the „MSC Zoe“ lost in stormy sea probably at two positions container. One point is according to the information about 22 kilometers north of the Dutch island Ameland, the second approximately 22 kilometers northwest of Borkum. The „MSC Zoe“ is one of the largest container ships in the world and had about 8,000 containers loaded. The ship came from the Portuguese port of Sines and is currently being unloaded in Bremerhaven in northern Germany.
The Havariekommando commissioned the Federal Maritime and Hydrographic Agency to use the position data to create a drift model in order to track the probable route of the moving containers and cargo. In action are the multi-purpose vessels „Neuwerk“ and „Mellum“, the buoys „Gustav Meyer“ and „North“, the special vessel „Wega“, the federal police boat „Bad Bramstedt“ and the customs boat „Borkum“.
Two containers with dangerous goods
The shipping company MSC, however, made it clear once again that it covers all costs for the salvage operation „in full“. „The search continues until the last container is found,“ said MSC on Saturday. Two of the containers overboard contained dangerous goods. One is dibenzoyl peroxide, which is used to cure resins or as a bleaching agent. In the second
According to the accident command, the majority of the containers and the cargo have been washed up on the Dutch islands. There, the beaches were partly littered with incandescent lamps, plastic toys, shoes, TV flat screens and freezers. In the Netherlands, it is not a criminal offense to bring washed-up goods with you. Only closed containers may not be opened. Who in this country washed up items, risked an ad for misappropriation.
The Dutch army and numerous citizens continued the clean-up work on the Frisian Wadden Sea islands on Saturday. According to the authorities in Leeuwarden, hundreds of citizens had driven from the mainland by ferry to the islands of Terschelling and Schiermonnikoog to clean beaches and dunes. How long the action should take is unclear, as new flotsam is constantly washed up.
Also on the beaches of the largest East Frisian island Borkum numerous cargo residues were collected. „Among them are TV, mattress protectors, toys and bicycle parts,“ said a spokesman for the accident command on Saturday night. Around 200 people would have helped to clear the beach of about 23 cubic meters of cargo over a length of 15 kilometers. That corresponds approximately to the load of a truck, explained the speaker further.
