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Container ships are bombs (bis)

A fireball and shock waves felt up to 25 km from Jebel Ali Port, near Dubai, United Arab Emirates, woke up and worried residents on the evening of Wednesday July 7, 2021. Firefighters responded to prevent the fire from spreading to other vessels, in particular the GFS Giselle, a 240 m long container ship.

The disaster is believed to have been caused by the explosion of a container on board the Ocean Trader. The small (90 m long) 28-year-old container ship is flying the flag of Comoros after the ones of Sierra Leone, the Philippines and Cambodia. The Ocean Trader had just docked in a basin in Jebel Ali Port occupied by container ships, tankers and bulk carriers. Before docking, the Ocean Trader remained in a waiting area off Jebel Ali for several weeks.

Given the orange lights and flames at the scene of the incident, it is not impossible that ammonium nitrate was involved. According to another hypothesis, the container would have been loaded with fireworks.

There were reportedly no casualties among the Ocean Trader’s crew.

As a reminder, it was in Jebel Ali that the X-Press Pearl loaded a leaking container of nitric acid on May 9 and 10, 2021, that caused a major pollution opposite the port of Colombo, Sri Lanka, at the end of May 2021. Jebel Ali is among the top 12 of the world’s container ports.

 

 

 

See also :
Container ships are bombs [3], May 29, 2019