MANILA – Two Filipinos are among four sailors declared missing after fire broke out at an ultra large container ship (ULCS) in the Arabian Sea, an industry news outlet reported. A third Filipino sailor was seriously injured and is being treated in an Indian hospital.
The missing Filipino sailors were identified in the maritimebulletin.net report as John Rey Begaso and Janrey Genvatin, both 21 years old and engine cadets from JBLFMU-Molo in Iloilo. According to latest updates from the Indian Coast Guard as of March 10, there are no traces yet of the missing sailors.
A third Filipino sailor, Alen Roy, was seriously injured after falling from the ship, the Maersk Honam.
The report said the fire had apparently run out of fuel to feed on as of March 10. Earlier on Friday, two offshore supply tugs were deployed for salvage.
That no traces of the missing sailors were yet found indicated, the report said, “that the ship wasn’t boarded,” by fire fighting and rescue units, which in turn was attributed to grave danger posed by “toxic fumes around and high probability of new explosions.”
The two other missing seafarers are one South African and one Indian national identified as Sakim Hegde, one of the cooks on board, according to the report, quoting a senior official from India’s maritime regulator Directorate General of Shipping (DGS).
In all, 23 crew were evacuated from the ultra large container ship Maersk Honam to a nearby vessel, ALS Ceres.
One of the rescued sailors, a Thai national, died from his injuries a day after being plucked out of the burning ship.
This Thai sailor was with the third Filipino reported as injured, and the report said earlier – before the Thai died – that they were “in urgent need of medical care as their conditions worsened.” The two men had been “evacuated by an Indian navy vessel and handed over to the Indian coast guard of Thiruvananthapuram and are now receiving medical treatment.”
The report identified the injured Filipino sailor as Alen Roy, 34 years old. He and the Thai and an Indian sailor were injured after falling from the ship.
