The bulker “Hai Li 5” collided with the container ship “Wan Hai A17” over the weekend and sank. Two seafarers remain missing.
A serious collision occurred off the Chinese port city of Guangzhou on the evening of October 25, when the container ship “Wan Hai A17” struck the 8,000-ton bulker “Hai Li 5”.
According to the Guangzhou Maritime Safety Administration (MSA), 13 of the 15 crew members from the bulker were rescued, while two are still missing. The crew of the “Wan Hai A17” remained unharmed. The Chinese-flagged “Hai Li 5”, owned by Nanjing Haili Shipping, sank following the collision.
According to Wan Hai, the Singapore-flagged “Wan Hai A17” was entering the port of Guangzhou when the “Hai Li 5” suffered a power failure. The bulker then collided with the incoming container vessel, one of the largest in Wan Hai’s fleet with a capacity of 13,100 TEU. Investigations into the exact circumstances of the accident are ongoing.
The “Wan Hai A17” is the tenth of thirteen ships in a series built by South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries. The ships are 335 meters long, 51 meters long and have a draught of 16 meters. They are labeled “Smart Ship”: This is intended to enable the use of monitoring systems and communication devices to record navigation data in real time and thus ensure safe transportation services, the shipping company announced in August.
The collision site in the Lingding Canal is located on one of the busiest and most complex waterways connecting the western ports of Guangzhou and Shenzhen. Logistics companies have reported temporary shipping closures affecting the Nansha, Huangpu and Humen terminals.
This is already the second accident involving a Wan Hai container ship: in June, several explosions and fatalities occurred on board the “Wan Hai 503 ” off the Indian coast. The ship lost at least 50 containers in the incident.
