Investigators are trying to make sense of the conflicting versions offered by the ship’s crew and maritime agencies.The oil tanker, MT Pratibha Cauvery, was an ill-maintained vessel already facing regulatory action on safety and operational grounds. Travel logs reveal it was arrested at Mangalore port in June and detained at Visakhapatnam in July for these reasons. Finally, it set sail in August for Chennai via Haldia on a ‘single voyage permission’ from Director General of Shipping to deliver oil, the status indicating that approval was temporary and strictly for one journey.
The vessel’s owner, Pratibha Shipping Company, a Mumbai-based firm founded in 1995, is quite familiar with such problems. Of its fleet of nine cargo ships, two are stranded in Chennai (the other being Pratibha Varna) and another in China. MT Pratibha Cauvery entered Chennai waters on Sept. 25 and stayed put for three days to unload the cargo. According to CEO of Pratibha Shipping Sunil Pawar ‘the ship discharged her cargo at Chennai port on Sept. 29. Then our licence for trade operations expired and the vessel was kept in the outer anchorage.’
While the crew waited for directions, conditions aboard grew dismal. They ran out of food and fuel over the next four weeks. All through October, it remained anchored three nautical miles from the Chennai coast with generators gradually shutting down and all systems, barring those for communication, being turned off.
The 37-member crew had supplies for seven days. They lived on it for nearly a month as repeated messages to the vessel owner went unheeded. Mr. Sarath, a crew member, said: “There was no drinking water, we collected rainwater from the deck for drinking.” Since the vessel remained within Chennai port’s jurisdictional limits, it continued to receive periodic weather bulletins and messages.
According to port officials, the first warning of a cyclone was issued by the Meteorological Department on Oct. 28 (Sunday), and by the noon of Oct. 30, Chennai Port Trust received a level 7 warning, which estimated wind speed at 100 kmph. This message was broadcast on a VHF channel to alert all vessels in the region.
Officials of the port’s Traffic Department said the Captain of Pratibha Cauvery told them the same day that he was short of fuel. The shipping agent, who liaises for the vessel owner, had not provided supplies and Pratibha Cauvery was in no position to sail out in time to avoid the storm. The Captain sought permission to dock. However, the port turned down his request saying it did not have berths to spare. There was no effort by the vessel owner or the shipping agent to expedite payments necessary to seek berthage. Pratibha Cauvery‘s crew was on its own. “We had to allot a berth to another stranded vessel OSM Arena,” said Chennai Port Trust Chairman Atulya Mishra.
The next morning, as the storm gained momentum, Pratibha Cauvery‘s anchors began dragging. Technicians tried in vain to run the engine to keep the ship from drifting, following which they sought help from the port around 10.30 am. They wanted tug boats to tow them to the outer seas, but it was too late to send help. The port’s towing vessels, which are of 35-45-tonne capacity, could not have weathered such a storm.
Buffeted by strong winds, the vessel drifted more than two nautical miles between 12.30 and 2.30 pm. The port Signal Station, which continued to receive distress calls from the bridge, sent out a message to the Coast Guard at 1.15 pm. The Coast Guard in Chennai has three search and rescue vessels and two single-engine helicopters for patrolling and rescue missions, but for the next four hours, the station chose not to deploy personnel or vessels to keep a watch on the straying ship or establish communication.
The tanker finally ran aground off Besant Nagar beach at 2.30 pm. It carried 357 tonnes of heavy oil, 3.5 tonnes of diesel and 37 panic-stricken sailors. By 3.15 pm, the crew had lowered a life boat carrying 22 sailors, on the orders of Capt. Carl Fernandez. Within minutes the boat capsized. Six sailors were rescued by fishermen and 10 others who stayed afloat wearing life jackets, were washed ashore. The remaining six were washed away.
News of the vessel’s grounding off Chennai was communicated to Coast Guard at 4.15 pm. With wind speeds still high, an inshore patrolling vessel took another hour to set out. “Coast Guard launched its vessel at 5.20 pm from its dock for rescue operations,” said Chief of Staff for the Eastern Region Gurupdesh Singh. Strong winds and low visibility impeded the search for the missing sailors until the next morning.
Rescued sailors later told media that they had repeatedly sought help, but it was not clear why they chose to abandon a grounded ship in such rough waters. “Even after it beached, the vessel was buffeted by the wind,” pointed out Nishanth Chandrakant, who stayed afloat for three hours holding on to the lifeboat.
The owner of the vessel, Pawar, said he was in constant touch with the Captain and had asked the crew to remain on board. “But they panicked and decided to lower the boat,” he said. Both Coast Guard and port officials said they issued a similar warning to the Captain.
No comments:
Post a Comment