THE SRI LANKAN Navy has evacuated all crew from the MV X-Press Pearl, a container ship that caught fire on Friday (21).
The vessel had left India's Hazira port on May 15. While it was on the way to Singapore via Colombo an explosion was reported from within the vessel.
“Rescuers evacuated all crew from a container ship off the coast of Sri Lanka as a fire on board intensified and two people were injured,” a spokesman for the Sri Lankan Navy said on Tuesday (25).
Navy spokesman Indika De Silva added that an air force helicopter was using dry chemical powder to douse the fire.
The MV X-Press Pearl was carrying cosmetics and chemicals, including 25 tonnes of nitric acid, and was anchored off Colombo when a container caught fire last Friday, officials said.
Sri Lankan authorities said experts from the Netherlands and Belgium were surveying the ship, while India had promised to send vessels and an aircraft to help fight the fire.
"A special Dutch flight with vital equipment to contain the fire is now expected to reach Sri Lanka," Sri Lanka's shipping minister Rohitha Abeygunawardena said.
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