After a mid-sea operation that lasted for over 72 hours, the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) personnel on board the specialised fire-fighting vessel Samudra Prahari on Wednesday extinguished the massive fire that had engulfed the fore of MV MOl Comfort off the Mumbai coast, en route to Oman, during the weekend.
“The fire on the derelict vessel has almost been extinguished. Small amount of smoke is still coming out of the vessel. The vessel is dangerously listed, with most of the containers on its board having been gutted,” a senior ICG official said here in the evening.
Responding to an alert from salvour Messrs Smit International of Singapore that the containers on-board derelict MV MOl Comfort, while being towed by Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) tug Urja to Port Sohar in Oman, caught fire in Arabian Sea, the ICG had on Sunday rushed Samudra Prahari to extinguish the blaze. By Monday evening, Samudra Prahari had managed to bring the blaze under control by ‘spraying water through water cannons’.
On the current status of the derelict MV MOl Comfort, the ICG official said: “The derelict vessel is now in a floating condition against reserve buoyancy. located 403 nautical miles off the Mumbai coast, the derelict vessel is being towed by tug Urja to Port Sohar (Oman).