MOL COMFORT IN INDIAN OCEAN
On 17 June 2013, MOL Comfort suffered a crack amidships in bad weather about 200 nautical miles off the coast of Yemen and eventually broke into two. The vessel was underway from Singapore to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with a cargo of containers. After the structural failure, both sections remained afloat with the majority of the cargo intact and began drifting in an East-Northeast direction. SMIT Salvage Singapore was contracted to tow the two sections to a safe destination. SMIT Salvage mobilized a combination of SMIT Singapore and SMIT Rotterdam team, SMIT mobilized a tug from Dubai with a Salvage team from Rotterdam onboard to tow the aft section into the safer water and a tug from Mumbai and Sri Lanka with the SMIT Singapore team onboard to tow the bow section into safer water. On 24 June, tugboats with Salvage team onboard arrived at the scene and connect the tow line in the bow and began towing the bow section to safety.
On 26 June, the stern section had badly listed and trim due to the ingress of water and on the following day it has been sunk at the Indian Ocean to a depth of approx.: 4,000metres. However, on July 06, a fire broke out in the rear part of the bow section. Unable to get the blaze under control in the adverse weather conditions, with most of the containers onboard had been destroyed by fire and in the following night, the damaged bow section sank in the Indian Ocean to a depth of approx. 3,000- meters.
