Fire extinguished on ferry outside Sweden with 300 on board
STOCKHOLM: A fire that broke out on a car ferry carrying 300 people off the coast of Sweden on Monday has been extinguished and the vessel will be towed to port, Swedish shipping authorities say.
The fire appeared to have started on a refrigerated truck on the car deck of the Stena Scandica, which sailed from Sweden to Latvia.
– The fire is out, says the Swedish Maritime Administration’s spokesperson Lisa Mjorning to AFP.
– The ferry will be towed to port within the next three to four hours, she says, adding that it will be towed to Nynäshamn, south of Stockholm.
The 300 people on board had remained on the ship, she added, correcting earlier information that an evacuation had begun.
“There are no injuries on board and there has been no evacuation,” she said.
Earlier, a spokesman for the Stena Line company that operates the ferry, Stefan Elfström, had said there was “a limited fire … concentrated in a refrigerated van on the car deck.
“It appears that the fire started in a refrigerated truck,” he said, adding that it had been “mainly smoke.”
The Swedish Maritime Administration had sent three helicopters and seven ships to the ship, which was off the island of Gotska Sandon on Sweden’s southeast coast.AFP