Posts Tagged "porte-conteneurs"

MSC Flaminia : to remove the doubts about radioactivity

23 Aug 2012

MSC Flaminia
Press release no. 4

Inspection of the damaged container ship before she crosses the English Channel and the North Sea will take place in the coming days.

German experts along with British, Dutch and French specialists shall examine the condition of the vessel, her containers and her cargo.

Robin des Bois wishes this expertise to be completed by a radiological diagnosis of the ship. Hundreds of containers are damaged and the charterer of MSC Flaminia, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), is known to occasionally transport radioactive materials. The company is also known for a lack of transparency when it comes to publishing, when required, an inventory of transported goods. In November 1997, the MSC Carla broke in two off the Azores during a journey from Le Havre to Boston. MSC have remained silent with regards to the nature of the cargo, and it was three days after the accident that the French Nuclear Installations Safety Directorate (DSIN) announced that three sealed radioactive sources for use in American hospitals were aboard MSC Carla; they sank with the fore section, whilst the aft section was towed to the Canary Islands.

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MSC Flaminia : to remove the doubts about radioactivity

23 Aug 2012

MSC Flaminia

Press release no. 4

Inspection of the damaged container ship before she crosses the English Channel and the North Sea will take place in the coming days.

German experts along with British, Dutch and French specialists shall examine the condition of the vessel, her containers and her cargo.

Robin des Bois wishes this expertise to be completed by a radiological diagnosis of the ship. Hundreds of containers are damaged and the charterer of MSC Flaminia, Mediterranean Shipping Company (MSC), is known to occasionally transport radioactive materials. The company is also known for a lack of transparency when it comes to publishing, when required, an inventory of transported goods. In November 1997, the MSC Carla broke in two off the Azores during a journey from Le Havre to Boston. MSC have remained silent with regards to the nature of the cargo, and it was three days after the accident that the French Nuclear Installations Safety Directorate (DSIN) announced that three sealed radioactive sources for use in American hospitals were aboard MSC Carla; they sank with the fore section, whilst the aft section was towed to the Canary Islands.

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The MSC Flaminia en route to Germany

20 Aug 2012

MSC Flaminia
Press release no. 3

The MSC Flaminia could find refuge in Bremerhaven, Germany. Bremerhaven not only has docks avalaible for unloading MSC Flaminia, a process that will take several weeks, but also a dry dock for emergency repairs. The normal stopover time for a container ship of this size is a few hours. This remote destination requires the convoy to cross the English Channel and the North Sea. Germany is taking its responsibility as the MSC Flaminia flies the German flag. It is unfortunate that France, the United Kingdom and other countries closer to the current position of the MSC Flaminia were unable or unwilling to take charge of the ship.

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MSC Flaminia – Open letter to concerning parties

31 Jul 2012

Urgent message addressed to the French and British governments and to the European Commission.

Mr Jean-Marc Ayrault
Mr David Cameron
Mr Siim Kallas
Mr Janez Potocnik

Dear Sirs,

Since July 14th 2012, following a fire and two explosions the container ship MSC Flaminia is in distress, in the North Atlantic. For the time being no place of refuge has been designated to receive the vessel which in addition to her containers is carrying several thousand tonnes of bunker oil. Robin des Bois is asking the coastal States of the Atlantic and the Channel to cooperate with the aim of facilitating the progression of the MSC Flaminia into Exclusive Economic Zones and territorial waters and to ease the entrance of the convoy into a port or place of refuge. Under these circumstances the practice of ping-pong with the MSC Flaminia from one side of the Channel to the other is only increasing the risk of a shipwreck and marine pollution. For more information on the subject Robin des Bois invites you to read “A Shelter for the MSC Flaminia” published yesterday.

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A shelter for the MSC Flaminia

30 Jul 2012

A shelter for the MSC Flaminia

Since July 14th 2012 the container ship MSC Flaminia is in distress in the North Atlantic. Her cargo consists of 2,876 containers of which an unknown percentage contains dangerous materials. The lack of information to the public on the vessel’s loads is all the more surprising as she set sail from Charleston in the United States of America where transit conditions and container loading have the reputation of being the strictest in the world since (9/11) September 11, 2001. One of the containers onboard the MSC Flaminia caught fire which resulted in an explosion in the middle of the vessel. The first explosion was followed by a second four days later. The fire spread to at least another two holds as it raged for 9 days. Two sailors are dead (one is missing and the other died from severe burns) and another three are injured. The container ship was abandoned by the crew. The eventual loss of containers at sea is unknown.

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