US coast guard search for missing sailors from Cyprus ship

TWO SEAMEN were reported still missing from the 25-man crew of an empty Cyprus-flagged cargo ship that caught fire while anchored in a US port, the US Coast Guard said yesterday.

The engine room of the 175-metre Violetta, owned by Cyclamen marine Ltd of Cyprus, caught fire on Monday while the ship was at anchor over a kilometre offshore outside Houston, Texas. The cause of the blaze was unknown.

Although 23 of the crew safely fled the burning ship to rescue, the chief engineer and a third-class engineer – both engine-room personnel – remained missing, the Coast Guard said. A search was under way for the two crewmen.

The area around the burning vessel was cordoned off as the fire steadily engulfed the ship throughout Monday. Despite the crippled ship, the busy Houston Ship Channel remained open.

Firefighters doused the ship with water overnight to cool it and keep it from breaking apart and sinking, and then boarded it yesterday to try fully to extinguish the blaze, whose thick black smoke had clouded the Texas port.

Although empty, the Violetta carried about 625,000 litres of fuel oil, Coast Guard Lieut. Diane Hauser said.

As a precaution, Texas authorities dispatched oil-spill crews and protective environmental oil booms to contain any spill, although officials said any such a spill was unlikely.

The ship arrived in the Texas port on Christmas Day to pick up a cargo of wheat bound for El Salvador, one of a half-dozen Central American countries ravaged recently by Hurricane Mitch, which killed over 10,000 people and left millions homeless and hungry.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.