Ship carrying 4,191 cars sinks after hitting oil tanker

A ship carrying 4,191 cars sank yesterday after colliding with an oil tanker in a busy shipping lane just south of Singapore. Twenty crew members were rescued from the sunken vessel and there were no reports of oil leaks.

The cause of the accident was not clear. Weather was fine at the time and both ships communicated with each other before the crash, officials said.

The collision between car carrier MV Hyundai No. 105 and the tanker MT Kaminesan, carrying 279,949 tons of crude oil, occurred just before midnight Saturday, the Maritime and Ports Authority of Singapore said.

Rescue tugs towed the Panama-registered tanker into Singapore for repairs, Ports Authority spokeswoman Theresa Pong said. Its 26 crew – six Japanese and 20 Filipinos – remained on the vessel. There was no oil leak, Pong said.

Tugs also towed the car carrier out of the busy shipping lane – which is used by vessels travelling between west and east Asia – before it sank just before dawn yesterday in 40-metre-deep water that belongs to Indonesia.

The 17-year-old ship has a hole measuring 50 metres by 20 metres in its side.
The vessel left the South Korean port of Ulsan on May 16 and was headed for Germany.

A salvage operation had been launched and the site of the sinking has been marked to alert passing vessels, said Patsy Phay, a spokeswoman for Eukor Car Carriers, the operator of the ship. She declined to reveal details of the salvage operation or the value of the cargo.

The ship was carrying Hyundai and Kia cars.

The vehicles were insured, so the company will not suffer a financial loss because of the accident, Hyundai official Kim Hwo-young said.

Hidenori Onuki, spokesman for Tokyo-based Mitsui O.S.K. Lines, which operates the tanker, said the collision caused water to enter a ballast tank near the front of the ship. But he said the area affected was small and the ship was able to sail on its own. He said there was no oil leakage and no reports of injuries.

Officials were investigating the cause of the accident, which occurred 7 km southeast of Singapore.

"Prior to the collision, warnings were given to the two vessels by the MPA's vessel traffic information service. The two vessels also communicated with each other," the Maritime and Ports Authority said in a statement.