The cause of the fire on this container ship was found: wrong declaration of dangerous goods! The ship is full of Chinese cargo

According to foreign media reports, Interasia Lines recently stated that the "Interasia Catalyst" ship, which had a fire in the Indian Ocean before, caught fire because of "misdeclaration of dangerous goods." The company also revealed that it plans to seek compensation from the relevant shipper.

The cause of the fire on this container ship was found: wrong declaration of dangerous goods! The ship is full of Chinese cargo

Yunda Shipping said: "We do not accept dangerous goods. Shippers should transport such goods on chemical tankers. We believe that the incorrect declaration of the goods was the cause of the fire."

It is understood that on April 4, shortly after the ship "Interasia Catalyst" left Port Klang, Malaysia, several containers on deck caught fire. The captain of the ship called for help at around one o'clock in the morning local time.

As of April 12, the fire had been brought under control, and the accident did not cause any casualties, but 9 containers were damaged and are waiting for the insurance company to conduct a loss assessment.

According to the data of Shipxun.com, as of 16:00 on April 16th, Beijing time, the location of the ship is as shown in the figure below.

The cause of the fire on this container ship was found: wrong declaration of dangerous goods! The ship is full of Chinese cargo
The latest location map of the "Interasia Catalyst" wheel
It is understood that the "Interasia Catalyst" ship that broke out in the fire was built in 2009 with a capacity of 4250 TEU and served the India-Pakistan line. Before the fire, the ship called Shekou, Hong Kong, Shantou, Ningbo, Shanghai, Qingdao and other Chinese ports.

In recent years, accidents such as explosions and fires of dangerous goods on ships have occurred from time to time due to concealment and misreporting of goods.

Misreporting or concealing dangerous goods will bring serious consequences to maritime transport safety and cause huge economic losses.

Remind shippers and freight forwarders again, don’t take chances and take risks.

Common dangerous goods transportation risks include the following aspects:

1. Shippers and freight forwarding companies intentionally or unintentionally do not declare dangerous goods, and use the difference in freight rates with ordinary goods to obtain unjust profits;

2. Shippers and freight forwarders do not clearly identify dangerous goods, resulting in negligence in declaration, packaging, packing, etc.;

3. Improper packing of dangerous goods, making it impossible to withstand the conventional risks of maritime transportation;

4. Lack of understanding of the "United Nations International Maritime Dangerous Goods Regulations" (International Dangerous Goods Regulations), and the shipper or forwarder has not correctly and adequately labelled and marked the containers containing dangerous goods;

5. Containers containing dangerous goods have not been stowage or segregated in accordance with the requirements of the International Dangerous Regulations, or have been erroneously loaded on unsuitable locations on the ship;

6. The dangerous goods containers are loaded on ships that do not have the corresponding dangerous goods transportation qualifications, etc.