100 fire fighting vehicles on fishing boats in the middle of the ocean

(Baonghean.vn)- "When the ship suddenly caught fire, all 12 crew members on board were unable to rush in to put out the fire. Fortunately, nearly 100 fishing boats in the nearby area surrounded the ship to help. Without them, who knows what would have happened," Captain Bui Van Tam shared.

Video clip of a ship on fire in the middle of the sea:

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On the morning of March 3, the fishing boat with registration number NA 90531, captained by Mr. Bui Van Tam in Hoa Binh village, Quynh Nghia commune (Quynh Luu), with 11 crew members on board, was fishing in the waters of Quang Binh.

At around midnight on March 6, while the crew was casting their nets to catch anchovies, they heard a small explosion coming from below the ship's hold. Fisherman Bui Duy Chien (chief engineer) recounted: "When I went down to check, I saw smoke billowing from the generator system below the hold. I immediately shouted for everyone on board to know and come to the rescue."

Hearing that the fishing boat was in trouble, Mr. Bui Van Tam called on the crew to quickly drop their fishing gear to help put out the fire. At the same time, he called his family and dropped all the boats on board into the sea to be ready to rescue and deal with the fire.

Many sailors are still in shock when recalling the fishing boat fire at sea.

The fire continued to spread throughout the ship, all machinery and communication equipment were burned. All crew members had no chance to rush in to put out the fire because the fire broke out very quickly. At that time, the ship's hold, which still had about 5,000 liters of unused fuel, was also burned by the fire, burning life jackets and other rescue equipment.

About 20 minutes after the smoke was discovered, nearly 100 vessels (mostly fishing boats of Nghe An fishermen) fishing in the area also quickly came to rescue the ship in distress. The 12 crew members saw the rescue ship coming and quickly jumped into the sea to swim out, waving a signal for help.

A grateful Mr. Bui Van Tam recounted: “When the boat caught fire, all the radio systems and life jackets were burned. If fishing boats in the nearby area had not surrounded us to help, I don’t know what would have happened to us.”

After the 12 crew members were rescued by other vessels, two ships surrounded the burning ship and rammed it to try to sink it and prevent the fire from spreading. However, the ship could not sink and the fire destroyed all the property on board.

It is known that the cause of the fire was due to a short circuit in the generator capacitor and the fire spread to the oil transfer pipe system into the operating equipment.

Captain Bui Van Tam - recounts the incident of a fishing boat burning at sea.

The NA 90531 ship had 12 crew members participating in fishing, of which 9 people contributed nearly 7 billion VND to build the ship. The ship had been in operation at sea for about 13 months when the accident happened.

“To build this new ship, many crew members had to borrow from banks and friends about 700 million VND. Unexpectedly, the ship had been in operation for just over a year when it unfortunately met with an accident. We can only hope that the authorities will consider and have policies to support the crew members to stabilize their lives and continue fishing activities,” said fisherman Nguyen Van Manh.

Mr. To Duy Hien - Chairman of Quynh Nghia Commune People's Committee said: The local authorities have visited and encouraged the families of the crew members to stabilize their spirits and overcome difficulties to continue building the economy. At the same time, the locality has made a report to the district to have policies to care for and help the fishermen, so that the fishermen can rest assured to soon resume production and develop the marine economy"./.

Viet Hung