A fire broke out on Saturday 23 October on containers aboard the Zim Kingston, a cargo ship carrying chemicals anchored off the city of Victoria in British Columbia, in the Strait of Juan de Fuca which marks the maritime border between Canada and the United States, according to the maritime monitoring site MarineTraffic.
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On the night of Saturday to Sunday, the Canadian Coast Guard evacuated 16 people from the container ship “After a fire broke out in ten containers” and emits toxic gas, without the situation presenting any risk to the populations on land, the authorities said on Sunday. “No injuries were reported”, said on Sunday Danaos Shipping Co, the company that manages the container ship, in a statement to the Reuters news agency.
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“An emergency zone has been set up on [un mille nautique] around the vessel while firefighting operations are in progress. There is currently no risk to the safety of people ashore, but the situation will continue to be monitored ”, she asserted.
“The fire remains a dynamic event and an Incident Command Post has been established to manage the situation. Responders are mobilizing to fight the fire and recover the containers that were detached from the ship on Friday ”, also said the coast guard. The origin of the fire was not yet known on Sunday.
“The vessel was carrying over 52,000 kg of xanthates, including potassium amylxanthate, housed in two of the burning containers on board the vessel. This substance is classified by the United States government as spontaneously combustible. Potassium amylxanthate is also toxic ”, reports the site of Radio-Canada, citing the Coast Guard. These chemicals are used by the mining industry.
According to Radio-Canada, ” [le Zim Kingston] was battered by rough seas on Friday and lost his cargo some 70 km from Vancouver Island and Washington State ”, as well as 40 containers in the Pacific that the Canadian Coast Guard and their American counterparts are trying to find.