Two crew members had to be rescued from a container ship off the B.C. coast after they suffered burns due to an engine fire, on Thursday.
The MOL Prestige is now adrift the southwest of Haida Gwaii, without a working engine and with nearly two dozen more people still onboard.
The Joint Rescue Coordination Centre said three people were inside the engine room when a “major” fire broke out.
Brandon Austin, search mission coordinator with the JRCC, said a senior crew member helped to get them out. Two were airlifted to the hospital with blistered hands and a third was recovering on the ship.
Austin said the Sir Wilfrid Laurier, one of the centre’s biggest relief ships, arrived on scene around midnight to support the crew while they were waiting for a tug.
The tug is expected to arrive by Friday afternoon, but Austin says it will be slow moving and the crew isn’t expected to see it until “some time”.
The crew yet has light, heating and communication being powered using an emergency generator, Austin said.
He added that a situation like this is “a fairly big deal”, that “doesn’t happen very often at all.”
The MOL Prestige is a 70,000-tonne ship nearly 300 metres in length. She’s registered in Singapore and was heading to Tokyo from Vancouver.
Did you subscribe for our daily newsletter?
It’s Free! Click here to Subscribe!
Source: CBC
