A Russian trawler with an ammonia tank and carrying about 200,000 liters of diesel oil was in flames on Sept. 26 at a northern Norwegian port and authorities evacuated surrounding areas because of an explosion risk.
The Norwegian public broadcaster NRK said the fire on the Bukhta Naezdnik started Wednesday. It is moored at the port of Breivika in the Tromsoe region.
“The fire is near the (ammonia) tank but it hasn’t exploded,” Oeystein Solstad, head of the region’s fire and rescue department told Norwegian newspaper VG.
“We believe that the valves have worked properly and that much has gone out of the tank. We don’t therefore think that there is a great danger of explosion right now, but we keep the tank cool all the time,” he said.
Local police said much of the diesel oil on the trawler is estimated to have burned overnight but that some oil had been found on the sea. There were no reports of casualties.
According to VG, the trawler has a crew of 29. A dozen of the crew onboard the trawler were sent to a hospital for a medical evaluation and possible smoke inhalation, The Moscow Times reported.
NRK said nearly 100 people had been evacuated from the area and police asked residents to keep their windows closed to avoid being exposed to smoke.
Photos and video footage from the scene showed the vessel had listed drastically by mid-morning Thursday and was covered with thick smoke.
NRK said the trawler — 64-meter (210 ft) long Bukhta Naezdnik — was built in Norway in 1991.
Russian 767-300 Boeing Caught Fire
In a separate incident also on Wednesday, 49 people on board a Russian passenger jet sought medical assistance after the plane hard landed in the Russian Siberian city of Barnaul, the RIA state news agency reporting, citing local emergency services.
A 767-300 Boeing operated by Russian Azur airlines, en route from the Vietnamese city of Cam Ranh, caught fire in its landing gear unit while landing in Barnaul, the Russian news agencies RIA and TASS reported.
There were no casualties, the reports said.
Safety concerns have plagued Russia’s airline industry since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, though standards are widely recognized to have sharply risen on international routes in particular in recent years.
NTD News reporter Lorenz Duchamps and Reuters contributed to this report.
