Hong Kong’s worst maritime accidents: from Lamma ferry crash on National Day 2012 to fire on former luxury liner Queen Elizabeth
- Blaze on Vietnam-registered Aulac Fortune off the coast of Lamma Island on Tuesday killed one crewman with two others still missing
- Emergency crew needed five hours to put the fire out
At least one crewman was killed, seven others injured and two were still missing after an oil tanker fire off the coast of Lamma Island in Hong Kong on Tuesday.
In 2017, 368 marine accidents occurred within Hong Kong waters, 17 of which were fires or explosions, according to statistics from the Marine Department. Two people were injured in those fires.
Here, we look at some of the major maritime accidents with Hong Kong connections down the years.
2018: Sanchi oil tanker blaze, East China Sea
On January 6, 2018, the Sanchi, an Iranian oil tanker carrying 136,000 tonnes of highly toxic light crude oil, collided with a Hong Kong-registered bulk freighter, setting the ship ablaze and killing all 32 Iranian crew members on board. Efforts to contain the fire and locate crew members took more than a week, but the ship eventually drifted towards Japan and sank on January 14.
The accident caused an oil slick covering an area of 100 square kilometres – roughly the size of Paris – in one of China’s richest fishing grounds.