Explosion and fire on container ship in the Gulf of Finland

5 February container ship MSC Giada III, heading to St. Petersburg, suffered a major breakdown during the passage through the waters of the Gulf of Finland. According to available information, the cause of the incident was an explosion in the engine room followed by a fire.

On a cargo container with a load capacity of approximately 39 000 tonnes, MSC Giada III There was a fire that, according to media reports, spread from the engine room to the residential part of the aft superstructure. The ship flies the flag of Liberia and has been operated by an MSC shipowner since 2022.

At the time of the explosion, 22 people were on board. The captain of the unit was a Russian citizen, while the other crew members were from Myanmar. There's no sign of the victims.

Service response and situation after rescue

Russian media reported that on the evening of February 4 the ship's AIS signal was deactivated when the unit was in the waters of the New Gulf. Starboard Maritime Intelligence service data indicates that the last item of the MSC Giada III was registered about 7:30 p.m. After that, the ship disappeared from tracking systems. Maritime traffic.

MNS Moscow channel reported towing the container ship to port and towing the rescue ship Spasatel Karav and an icebreaker Semyon Dezhnev. However, Starboard Maritime Intelligence data indicates that Spasatel Karav has not left the port of St. Petersburg since the evening of 4 February, while Semyon Dezhnev it was actually in the area of the incident on the afternoon of February 5.

Background

There's a fire left. completely extinguished in a few hours. As reported, the hull of the unit was not damaged, and the service did not notice a fuel leak or other petroleum-derived substances. After the firefighting operations were completed, the container ship was towed to a port in St. Petersburg for inspection, where it appeared on February 5. Then the AIS signal was restored, confirming the docking of the ship.

Built in 2002 MSC Giada III of a capacity of 2700 TEU supports connections on routes covering the Baltic Sea and ports of Spain and Portugal. The available schedules show that the unit left Agadir, then rolled to Antwerp, then headed for Russia. The next planned ports were to be Riga and Klaipeda.