The fires caused by the two ships, the merchant ship Solong and the tanker Stena Immaculate, which collided in the North Sea yesterday, Monday, continue to burn for a second day.
At the same time, investigations are in full swing into how the 140-meter-long Solong crashed into the tanker carrying jet fuel on behalf of the US government after it had sailed from the port of Agioi Theodoroi.
What is troubling is the fact that the Portuguese-flagged merchant ship carrying at least 15 containers of sodium cyanide, a toxic substance that can potentially cause death, crashed into its larger tanker without reducing its speed at all.
Videos from the MarrineTraffic website show the Solong moving at a speed of 16 knots throughout its entire route until it hit the Stena Immaculate, without at any time reducing its speed.
Although this element "ignited" the possibility that there was some kind of sabotage behind the collision - with the most extreme scenarios even talking about hacking the Solong - two port security officials told Reuters that there was no indication of malicious action or any other factor that contributed to the collision of the two ships.
This view is shared by Professor of Naval History, Sal Mercoliano, who in his analysis describes that the Solong very often made the same route at the same or similar speed.
During its analysis, the Solong crew showed excessive confidence in the automatic navigation system, without ruling out that there was only one person on the bridge.
A total of 37 people were on board the two ships – 23 on the tanker and 14 on the merchant ship – of whom 36 have been rescued and one is missing. Of the 36 rescued, only one person, as Sky News reports, needed to be taken to hospital.
The great concern now concerns the possibility of ecological disaster, as both the sodium cyanide carried by the Solong and the 220.000 barrels of jet fuel carried by the Stena Immaculate are extremely dangerous and toxic to marine life.
The Crowley company that manages the tanker has so far announced that at least one of the 16 tanks has ruptured, without being able to specify how much fuel has fallen into the sea.
Source: protothema.gr
