Fire in LPG tanker extinguished after 35 hours

The fire that broke out on the B LPG Sophia, a tanker that transports LPG under the Panamanian flag, was completely extinguished yesterday, more than 35 hours after the vessel caught fire.

With the help of Chittagong Port Authority (CPA) tug Kandari-4, the tanker was towed to about 16 nautical miles from Kutubdia Lighthouse, while firefighting tugs of CPA, Navy and Coast Guard they continued spraying water, port officials said.

CPA secretary Omar Faruk told the Daily Star that the fire could be completely put out by 12:15 p.m., but the two CPA tugs continued spraying water to cool Sophia, a small vessel.

Two tankers, B LPG Sophia and mother ship Captain Nikolas, caught fire during ship-to-ship transfer of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) at the anchorage off Kutubdia at around 12:45 pm on Sunday, in the third ship incident catching fire in two weeks.

The crew of Captain Nikolas, a 230-meter Tanzanian-flagged ship, put out the flames around 3 a.m., almost three hours after the ship caught fire, according to the CPA.

Meanwhile, members of the CPA committee formed to investigate the incident went to the Kutubdia anchorage yesterday to visit the two oil tankers affected by the fire.

The team, led by Commodore M Fazlar Rahman, member of the CPA (port and marine), and some of the Sophia’s crew boarded the Sophia for inspection at around 5pm.

When contacted, Captain Faridul Alam, deputy conservator of the CPA, told this newspaper that they inspected the tanker and advised its commander to drop anchor to keep the ship in a safe anchoring position.

He added that CPA tugs were there to monitor.

Port officials said it took a long time to fully extinguish the flames because gas was emitted from the cargo hold, causing small fires.

Quoting one of the commanders of the tugboats involved in firefighting, a senior official from the CPA’s maritime department said the firefighting tugs managed to control the fire in the ship’s first LPG tank on Sunday morning.

He added that they struggled to control the fire in the second and third tanks until the gas was fully emitted, the official said.