News / Swift action prevents 'catastrophic event' as another explosion rocks a box ship

Containership fires are still a heightened source of concern for the industry – the latest incident was reported this week, at Sri Lanka’s port of Colombo.

Fire broke out aboard the MSC Capetown III in the early hours of Sunday at the Jaya Container Terminal (JCT), according to the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA).

The SLPA said the fire, believed to have started in the under-deck cargo space, escalated to an explosion – only the swift action by firefighters prevented  “what could have been a catastrophic event,” added the authority.

Operations director HJ Kumara said: “Our firefighters, led by the harbour master, in collaboration with other port services, acted swiftly to extinguish the fire and safely remove affected cargo.”

According to media reports, the vessel’s manifest data showed only one dangerous cargo container, which had already been offloaded along with 60 other boxes before any fire or smoke was seen.

The Madeira-flagged vessel, on MSC’s South-east Asia-East Africa service, arrived from Singapore and was to perform some 995 container discharges and 880 container lifts (new exports). Colombo is one of the busiest intermediate hubs in Asia, handling the most of the Indian Subcontinent’s containerised transhipment trade.

The SLPA said investigations were under way to ascertain the cause of the fire and status of cargo remaining on board. No injuries were reported.

The latest incident follows two major ship fires in recent weeks: on the Maersk Frankfurt, off the Indian coast; and an explosion and fire on the YM Mobility at Ningbo Port in China.

Following the Maersk Honam blaze in 2018 that killed five crew members, the Danish carrier tightened rules regarding the stowage of cargo covered under the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) code.