Salvage team bound for burning cargo ship off Alaska carrying Chinese cars
Ship carrying about 3,000 cars, including 800 EVs, has been abandoned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean after catching fire
A salvage team was expected to arrive early next week at the scene of a cargo ship that was carrying about 3,000 vehicles to Mexico when it caught fire in waters off Alaska’s Aleutian island chain.
A tug carrying salvage specialists and special equipment was expected to arrive at the location of the Morning Midas around Monday, the ship’s management company, London-based Zodiac Maritime, said Thursday.
The crew will assess the ship’s condition, and a separate tug with firefighting and ocean towage capabilities was being arranged, the company said in its statement. In the meantime, officials were using the ship’s onboard satellite-connected systems to monitor it.
The vessel remained afloat as of Thursday, and images gathered by the US Coast Guard showed it was still “alight with smoke emanating” from it, the statement said.
The Coast Guard has said it received a distress alert around 3.15pm Tuesday about a fire aboard the Morning Midas, which was roughly 490km (300 miles) southwest of Adak Island.
The ship was carrying about 70 fully electric and about 680 hybrid vehicles, the US Coast Guard said, noting that the information was preliminary. Cars from several Chinese carmakers were on the ship, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter.