Ship Carrying Nearly 3,000 Cars Catches Fire – Indian Sailor Killed

A freighter ship carrying cars has caught fire near the coast of the Netherlands. The freighter, Fremantle Highway, was carrying 2,857 cars including 350 Mercedes vehicles to Egypt.

The Panama-registered Fremantle Highway started its journey in the German port of Bremen and was headed to Port Said in Egypt. The fire on board the ship started when the shop was off the coast of the Netherlands.

The Dutch Coast Guard stated that they received news of the fire aboard the Freemantle Highway on Tuesday evening, shortly before midnight (Central European Standard Time). After rescuing the sailors, rescue ships attempted to extinguish the fire by spraying the burning vessel with water.

As per the latest updates from the Dutch Coast Guard, firefighters have stopped attempting to cool down the ship as using too much water could see it sink into the sea in one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world.

The Dutch Coast Guard has towed the Freemantle Highway out of the shipping lanes with the help of an emergency towing connection with another ship dubbed ‘Hunter’. The fiery car-carrying ship is currently located 10 miles (16.5 kilometres) north of the Dutch island of Terschelling.

The fire, which is still burning and one that reports suggest started near an electric car, resulted in the death of an Indian sailor. The other 20 sailors (all Indian as per the ship’s owner, Japanese firm Shoei Kisen) were rescued, with some dealing with injuries as the blaze caused seven shipmen to jump into the sea.

This is not the first time that a ship carrying cars across the seas has caught fire. Last year, another car-carrying ship called the Felicity Ace had sunk off the Azores Islands in Portugal after catching fire. This fire was also reported to have been caused by an electric car, though this news has never been officially confirmed.

The Felicity Ace was carrying nearly 4,000 cars from the Volkswagen Group including 15 Lamborghini Aventador Ultimae supercars, the last version of the Aventador supercar which was limited to 600 units. Lamborghini was forced to restart production of the Aventador Ultimae to replace the cars that ended up at the bottom of the Atlantic.

The Freemantle Highway is the latest in a series of car-carrying freighters to have caught fire recently. However, the fact that a sailor lost their life due to this fire is something that makes us bw our heads and mourn. We hope that new safety regulations, which are said to include directions on just how much charge an EV battery can have before being shipped get implemented before another tragic loss of life occurs.

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