Cargo ship catches fire off Pingtung, 4 injured, 17 still on board

Taipei, Jan. 5 (CNA) Four injured crew members on a Marshall Islands-registered cargo ship that caught fire off the Pingtung coast Saturday evening have been airlifted to safety while the other 17 crew members were still on board as of early Sunday afternoon, according to the Coast Guard Administration (CGA).

CGA official Huang Liang-wei (黃亮圍) said in a joint media interview Sunday that preparations were being made to tow the disabled ship into the port of Kaohsiung by Monday at noon, apparently with the 17 crew members aboard.

On Saturday, the four airlifted crew members suffered burns after a fire broke out in the engine room of the Marshall Islands-registered cargo ship, Panoria, causing it to lose power.

The fire was extinguished by the crew, but one crew member suffered serious burns and three others suffered minor burns from the fire, and all needed to be treated urgently, according to the CGA, which first received reports of the incident at 5 p.m. Saturday.

Despite bad weather and choppy seas, the injured crew members were airlifted from the ship at about 7 p.m. Saturday and taken to the Kaohsiung International Airport before being rushed to a local hospital for treatment.

The difficult sea conditions made it impossible to rescue the other crew workers, but Huang said that at around 8 a.m. on Sunday, a tug vessel sailing under the flag of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the Salvage Rigger, headed to the scene escorted by CGA ships.

The cargo ship was expected to arrive in the port of Kaohsiung before Monday noon, Huang said.

In a statement Saturday, the CGA said it received a report at about 5 p.m. that the Marshall Islands-registered cargo ship had sent a distress signal via radio 23 nautical miles (42.6 kilometers) southwest of Cape Eluanbi, Taiwan's southernmost point.

The message said a fire had broken out in the engine room and a total of 21 crew members were waiting to be rescued.

It then dispatched five ships, including the Anping, to the scene to carry out the rescue operation.

At around 6 p.m., the Anping was the first to reach the area where the incident had occurred, and contacted the cargo ship via radio.

The rescue effort was complicated by waves reaching 3-4 meters in height in the area and problems in bringing the rescue ship and cargo ship together.

The Ministry of National Defense's search and rescue aircraft did not arrive at the scene until around 7 p.m. Saturday, when it brought the four injured crew members to Kaohsiung but left the other 17 crew members on board.

According to the statement, the CGA said it continued to monitor the situation at the site and contacted the Maritime and Port Bureau's Southern Maritime Affairs Center, which agreed to dispatch a tugboat to the site.