The Indian Coast Guard on Sunday rescued a foreign-flagged tanker carrying 9,000 tonnes of palm oil after its main engine failed and ballast tanks began flooding, leaving the vessel dangerously tilted off the Odisha coast, officials confirmed.
The Belize-flagged MT Seagull 9, carrying 23 crew members, sent out a distress call around 7.30am on Sunday, when it was about 37 nautical miles east-southeast of Paradip.
Coast chief public relations officer Commandant Amit Uniyal said the Coast Guard immediately deployed its offshore patrol vessel ICGS Vishwast to the distressed tanker.
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{{/usCountry}}"A specialised damage-control team boarded the vessel despite challenging conditions and launched de-flooding operations using submersible pumps and other equipment. The team arrested the flooding, blanked two damaged seawater pipelines and contained a third fractured line, preventing the situation from worsening," he said.
The Coast Guard also diverted a pollution control vessel and another offshore patrol vessel to the area to strengthen pollution-response measures and maintain round-the-clock surveillance.
With the tanker stabilised, its crew and the Coast Guard team carried out cargo-transfer and de-flooding operations simultaneously, averting the risk of the vessel capsizing.
Coast Guard Dornier aircraft operating from Bhubaneswar also conducted aerial surveillance of the tanker and surrounding waters.
A minor palm-oil sheen spotted near the vessel on Sunday was found to have completely dissipated during follow-up aerial sorties on Monday, officials said. Pollution-response measures, however, remain in place as a precaution.
After the tanker was stabilised, Paradip Port Authority tug Dolphin took MT Seagull 9 under tow toward the anchorage area off Paradip.
Uniyal said repairs to the vessel's main engine are underway with assistance from the technical team of ICGS Vishwast.
The Coast Guard's specialised assets remain deployed at the site and are maintaining continuous surveillance and providing operational assistance. He said the real-time distress emergency response is a prelude to the National Maritime SAR exercise scheduled for October 8 off Paradip.
The Indian Coast Guard, which is the country's maritime law enforcement agency, is meant to ensure the safety of India's offshore assets, secure sea lines of communication, respond to emergencies at sea, combat marine pollution, as well as, provide humanitarian assistance.
Earlier, on September 11, the Indian Coast Guard safely evacuated 21 crew members after a merchant vessel, MV KMAX EMPEROR, collided with another merchant ship, MV TRUE MARINER, near the outer anchorage OTB Kandla in Gujarat.
Last month, the coast guard carried out search and rescue operations after cargo ship MV Ocean Winner sank in the Bay of Bengal on August 21. The 1998-built bulk carrier, carrying about 71,200 metric tonnes of iron ore fines from Paradip port in Odisha to China, sank around 290 nautical miles off Paradip. The vessel was carrying 24 crew members, including 20 Chinese nationals, one Bangladeshi and three Myanmar nationals.