It was an excruciating 24 hours for the 22 young crew members of container ship MV SSL Kolkata, which caught fire in the Bay of Bengal on Wednesday night, and they all saw it happen, inches from death, before being rescued by Coast Guard personnel.
It was an excruciating 24 hours for the 22 young crew members of container ship MV SSL Kolkata, which caught fire in the Bay of Bengal on Wednesday night, and they all saw it happen, inches from death, before being rescued by Coast Guard personnel.
A fire was reported by the captain of the container vessel at 11 pm on Wednesday and after fighting the blaze through the night that engulfed 70 per cent of the ship, the crew members were picked up by 'RCGS Rajkiran' and were back an hour before midnight on Thursday at the Coast Guard's Haldia port base.
A Coast Guard official today said SSL Kolkata is still burning and its ships are monitoring the container vessel which is adrift near the Sagar Islands.
The Coast Guard rescued the crew of SSL Kolkata after they abandoned their ship amid very rough seas of the monsoon-charged Bay of Bengal in a courageous operation yesterday.
"We were fighting the fire the full night and came back after travelling the whole day," a visibly exhausted Rajat Ranjan, the Master of SSL Kolkata said after a cheerful greeting by the Coast Guard personnel led by its West Bengal commandant DIG M A Warsi on their return.
The SSL Kolkata crew members abandoned their ship and boarded life rafts on to the sea for close to four hours and were picked up from there by the Coast Guard personnel.
"We are extremely tired owing to the events since yesterday," Ranjan told journalists waiting at the jetty to witness the return of RCGS Rajkiran with the rescued crew members at Haldia, about 130 km from the state capital Kolkata.
"It is the will of God that we are alive and back to land again," said a crew member as his colleagues raised slogans of "Coast Guard zindabad".
Rajkiran's captain T Ngamlien said that it was a challenge to rescue the distressed crew members of the container vessel amid very rough seas and inclement weather.
SSL Kolkata reported the fire at around 11 pm on Wednesday and on being informed, the Coast Guard's commander of Northeast region inspector general K S Sheoran ordered a rescue operation.
"We were informed there is a grave situation in Sandheads. We summoned the crew within 30 minutes and sailed from here for locating the ship and rescuing the crew," Ngamlien, a native of Manipur, said.
"We overcame very rough seas and inclement weather to reach the ship as it was a call of humanity," said Ngamlien, who joined the Coast Guard in 2006 and took over the reins of Rajkiran just two months back.
He said that despite the challenging weather, they sailed at a maximum speed of 30 knots per hour and reached the distressed ship at around 8 am yesterday.
"The crew had decided to abandon the ship. It took four hours to complete the rescue of the 22 crew members, including the Master," he said.
The 148-metre long MV SSL Kolkata had a total of 464 containers and 211 metric tonne (MT) of heavy fuel onboard, a Coast Guard spokesperson said.
After having caught fire, the container vessel went adrift about 55 nautical miles from Sandheads anchorage near the confluence of the Bay of Bengal and the Hooghly river.
According to the Kolkata Port Trust, the container vessel was carrying 10,683.51 MT of containerized cargo to Kolkata from Krishnapatnam in Andhra Pradesh.
Sanjoy Mukherjee, a Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) spokesman, said "the ship reported fire on deck cargo containing chemicals".
The Coast Guard NE IG Sheoran said that according to information from the owner of the vessel, fire occurred due to an explosion in the lower hold and thereafter spread to containers on the main upper deck.
"The fire initially spread to 8 to 10 containers. However, due to inclement and strong wind conditions, it later developed into a major fire and rapidly spread to adjacent compartments," IG Sheoran said.
The Rajkiran crew and a Dornier aircraft of the Coast Guard deployed for locating the ship found that about 70 per cent of the vessel was on fire and the Master of the vessel decided to abandon the ship, he said.
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
 "Merchant ship MV SSL Kolkata.")
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
)
)
)
)
)
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}
){kind=small}