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12-03-2025
EAST YORKSHIRE: Thirty-six people have been brought ashore after a cargo vessel collided with an oil tanker off the East Yorkshire coast. Both ships are on fire, the coastguard says.
A crew member from the cargo vessel is missing, and one person was taken to hospital, it adds.
It’s emerged that the cargo ship was carrying 15 containers of the toxic chemical sodium cyanide.
The tanker was carrying jet fuel for the US government, some of which is spilling into the North Sea.
The incident occurred before 10:00 GMT, with the Stena Immaculate tanker apparently hit while at anchor by the container Solong, tracking data analyzed by media.
Just before 10:00 GMT, two vessels collided off the East Yorkshire coast in a busy shipping area.
Both caught fire. Twelve hours on, they are continuing to burn.
The Stena Immaculate, a US oil tanker was hit by the Portuguese cargo ship, the Solong, while at anchor.
It came out of the blue, a tanker crew member told the BBC’s Rowan Bridge. He and his colleagues were buying new clothes in the local Asda, they had no time to collect their belongings before being rushed onto lifeboats.
The coastguard said 36 people were brought ashore, one of whom was hospitalized.
Solong’s owner, Ernst Russ, later shared that one member of its 14-strong crew was missing. This was confirmed by the coastguard as it announced that the search had been called off.
The Stena Immaculate was carrying jet fuel for the US government when it was struck, some of which is spilling into the sea, sparking concerns for the marine life in the area. The Solong was carrying 15 containers of sodium cyanide among its cargo, according to a report. It’s unclear if any has entered the water.
While we’re starting to get a clearer sense of the events that led to the collision, many questions as to how and why it happened remain unanswered.
Our live coverage is ending now, but we’ll continue to update you on all the latest developments in our main news story.
My colleague Rowan Bridge said earlier that one of the crew from the Stena Immaculate that spoke to him in Grimsby was American. That’s consistent with what this ship was being used for.
In fact, the US military says it had been on a short-term charter to the US Navy’s Military Sealift Command.
It is one of 10 vessels in the US government’s Tanker Security Program, which is designed to make sure the military can move things around if they need to, particularly in times of armed conflict or national emergency.
It’s a program that harks back to World War One, when the US government found itself short of ocean-going capability. This led to the 1920 legislation known as the Jones Act.
It requires cargo vessels sailing between two US ports to be American flagged and registered, and to use at least 75% American crew. The expense of this means not many cargo vessels are US registered.
The US government plays a key role in supporting the viability of the vessels that do meet these requirements, such as by contracting them, so that in a time of national emergency the US has a homegrown merchant fleet to call on. (Int’l News Desk)
