On Wednesday afternoon, a fire broke out in the engine room of the German container ship “Victoria L”.
The accident occurred 30 nautical miles west of Scheveningen. The Dutch Coast Guard and other emergency services are on the scene.
The “Victoria L” was sailing from Hamburg to Rotterdam when the engine room caught fire for reasons that have not yet been clarified. The fire was reported at 14:45 local time on Wednesday. The ship was traveling without cargo and with 19 crew members. No injuries have yet been reported in the accident.
According to the Coast Guard, there was little to no smoke on board when an aircraft arrived to make an initial assessment of the situation. The captain of the ship made an emergency call. The Dutch Coast Guard then mobilized its Maritime Incident Response Group. The specialized firefighting team was transported to the ship by helicopter, while a second team remained on standby on a nearby oil platform. Numerous other rescue teams were deployed. As things stand, the fire was brought under control at around 5 pm. The authorities are continuing to monitor the status of the ship.
The “Victoria L” was built in 2009 and has a capacity of 1,368 TEU. It sails under the Liberian flag. The ship is owned by the German company Hermann Lohmann Bereederungen, headquartered in Haren an der Ems.
The accident comes almost exactly one month after the “Solong” collided with the tanker “Stena Immaculate” off the English coast. The ship belongs to the German shipping company Ernst Russ.
