18 Presumed Dead in Norwegian Ship Disaster

20/01/2004| IslamWeb

Eighteen crewmen, including 16 Filipinos, were presumed dead as rescue workers abandoned the search for survivors after a cargo ship capsized in icy waters off the southwest coast of Norway. Just over 24 hours after the accident, three people were confirmed dead and 12 others rescued after the recently-built Norwegian-operated ship Rocknes rapidly keeled over in the Raune fjord on Monday. But 15, including the ship's Norwegian captain Jan Aksel Juvik, were still missing at 4:00 pm (1500 GMT) on Tuesday, and rescue workers said they were launching a recovery operation. "We will go into a new phase and start searching for dead people instead," a spokeswoman for the Sola rescue center in southwestern Norway, Birgit Sildnes, told AFP. Rescue workers said many of the missing crew members -- 13 Filipinos, one Norwegian and one German -- may have been trapped inside the hull of the overturned ship, which was believed to have filled with water since the accident. Sildnes said divers had not been able to enter the ship because the vessel, loaded with a cargo of rubble, was not yet stable enough. The cause of the accident was still unknown, but Norwegian media reported that a collision with an underground rock may have sliced open the Rocknes' hull. A number of witness reported seeing a gash in the keel. The 166-metre (547-feet) Rocknes, carrying a cargo of heavy rocks from the Norwegian port of Eikefet to Emden in northwest Germany, ran into trouble in the Raune fjord, whose waters flow into the North Sea. The ship was built in 2001 and had been used since 2003 to dump rocks offshore to secure underwater oil pipelines by weighing them down. No sign of life has been detected inside the ship since 11:20 pm (2220 GMT) on Monday when, seven hours after the vessel flipped over, three Filipino survivors were pulled from the hull where they had been trapped. Rescuers, who had dragged the ship to shallower water, heard shouting and pounding from the three survivors from the inside of the keel and drilled a hole in it to free them. An official at the hospital where the three were later taken, Guttorm Bratteboe, told Norwegian news agency NTB that the three were "on duty in the engine room" when the vessel capsized, and had survived by finding an air pocket. That rescue triggered hopes of finding others alive, but almost 12 hours later only one dead body had been plucked from the waters of the Raune fjord, six kilometers (four miles) from the ship. Two other bodies were found on Monday shortly after the disaster. In all, 30 crewmen were on the ship -- 24 Filipinos, three Dutchmen, two Norwegians and one German -- according to the ship's Norwegian operator, Jebsen Management. A medical official at the Haukeland University Hospital where 11 survivors were being treated, August Bakke, said they told him that "the whole thing happened very quickly. One of them said it took less than a minute". On Tuesday, recovery efforts were complicated by freezing temperatures, which made the keel very slippery, and heavy underwater currents. These factors, and the onset of darkness, also complicated the work being done to clean up oil from the ship that had spilled into the fjord when it capsized. How much of the 445 tons of heavy oil, 67 tons of marine diesel and 21 tons of greasing oil onboard the Rocknes spilled into the fjord was still unclear, but the Coastal Service said there were large spots of oil in the water and on land. Considered to be one of the most modern ships operated by Jebsen, the Rocknes underwent checks by Norwegian maritime authorities in mid-2003 and was found to be safe. "We don't know how this accident could have happened. It's just incomprehensible," said Atle Jebsen, chairman of the board of Jebsen Management. Police declined to speculate on the cause of the accident, but said they were particularly interested in speaking to a Norwegian pilot who boarded the Rocknes to help it navigate through the narrow fjord. **PHOTO CAPTION*** Notes that were passed to rescue workers from surviving crew members trapped inside the Norwegian-owned freighter Rocknes, which capsized off Bergen, Western Norway, are displayed Tuesday, Jan. 20, 2004. (AP Photo/ Marit Hommedal/Scanpix