''MSC Messina'' is a Liberian-flagged

container ship A container ship (also called boxship or spelled containership) is a cargo ship that carries all of its load in truck-size intermodal containers, in a technique called containerization. Container ships are a common means of commercial intermoda ...

. The ship is operated by

Mediterranean Shipping Company Mediterranean Shipping Company S.A. (MSC) is an international shipping line founded by Gianluigi Aponte in Italy in 1970, with headquarters in Switzerland since 1978. The privately held company is owned by the Aponte family. It has been the larg ...

which is the second largest container operator in the world. It was built in 1995.

Fire

On 24 June 2021, the ship caught fire in the midway of the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or ~19.8% of the water on Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia to the east. To the south it is bounded by ...

halfway between

Sri Lanka Sri Lanka (, ; si, ශ්‍රී ලංකා, Śrī Laṅkā, translit-std=ISO (); ta, இலங்கை, Ilaṅkai, translit-std=ISO ()), formerly known as Ceylon and officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka, is an ...

and

Malacca Strait The Strait of Malacca is a narrow stretch of water, 500 mi (800 km) long and from 40 to 155 mi (65–250 km) wide, between the Malay Peninsula (Peninsular Malaysia) to the northeast and the Indonesian island of Sumatra to the southwest, conne ...

. The fire broke in the engine room of the ship, at some away from the

Great Basses Reef Lighthouse Great Basses Reef Lighthouse is an offshore lighthouse in the south of Sri Lanka, operated and maintained by the Sri Lanka Ports Authority. It is located on a reef 13 km off the coast of Yala National Park, near Little Basses Reef Lighthous ...

Kirinda Kirinda is a town in Sri Lanka. It is located in the Southern Province. See also *List of towns in Central Province, Sri Lanka Central Province is a province of Sri Lanka, containing the Kandy District, Matale District, and Nuwara Eliya Dist ...

. The fire in incident took place when the ship departed from the

Colombo Port The Port of Colombo (known as Port of Kolomtota during the early 14th Century Kotte Kingdom) is the largest and busiest port in Sri Lanka and the Indian Ocean. Located in Colombo, on the southwestern shores on the Kelani River, it serves as an ...

Singapore Singapore (), officially the Republic of Singapore, is a sovereign island country and city-state in maritime Southeast Asia. It lies about one degree of latitude () north of the equator, off the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, borde ...

with around 28 crew members on board. It was revealed that the ship arrived to Sri Lanka on 22 June 2021. On 26 June 2021, the fire was brought under control by the crew members of the ship by using carbon dioxide to douse the fire. The

Indian Coast Guard The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) is a maritime law enforcement and search and rescue agency of India with jurisdiction over its territorial waters including its contiguous zone and exclusive economic zone. The Indian Coast Guard was formally estab ...

came to the rescue immediately as it deployed one of its ships and aircraft to provide assistance to the container ship during the rescue operations. At least one crew member was reportedly missing during the fire incident and search operations began. On 27 June 2021, the ship departed to Singapore once the fire was successful extinguished from the engine room.

References

{{2021 shipwrecks Maritime incidents in 2021 Container ships 2021 in Sri Lanka June 2021 events in Asia Environmental disasters in Asia Ship fires Shipwrecks in the Indian Ocean 2021 fires in Asia 2021 disasters in Asia 1995 ships