Malaysian Cargo Ship Overturns In Chilika

Puri: Three weeks after it drifted to the shore of Chilika Lake, the Malaysian cargo ship ‘Jin Hwa 32’ overturned on Tuesday afternoon.

Official sources said that there was no leakage of oil from the vessel since the engine was intact and the mishap caused no damage to it.

Extraction of oil from the vessel will begin from Wednesday. “The entire process will be completed in two days,” said Puri Collector Balwant Singh.

Earlier, the Coast Guard had apprised the Odisha Government of the threat to the coastal zone off Chilika lake due to a possible oil leakage from the cargo ship, which contains 30,000 litres of diesel, 1000 litres of lube oil and 200 litres of hydraulic oil.

Commerce and Transport minister Padmanabha Behera on Monday had told the media that initially there were problems in tracing the owner of the vessel. However, the owner later sought permission from the Puri collector for removing the oil. Once oil from the vessel was emptied, steps would be taken for the removal of the vessel, he added.

The ill-fated ship with seven Malaysians, two Filipinos and one Indian on board, was on the way to Visakhapatnam port to pick up new cargo after unloading its shipment in Bangladesh when it got caught in a storm in the Bay of Bengal and drifted towards Odisha on the night and got stuck near Rajhans on Chilika shore on August 7.