Professional Documents
Culture Documents
th
20 Session of APHoMSA
Distributed: 3 April 2019
Purpose
1. To inform APHoMSA members about the actions taken by the Marine Department of Hong
Kong, China in response to the explosion of a motor product/chemical tanker (the tanker)
in Hong Kong waters in January 2019.
Background
2. The tanker exploded in Hong Kong waters while preparing to take bunker. Particulars of
the tanker are:
Length overall (LOA) : below 150 m
Gross tonnage (GRT): below 15,000
3. At the time of the incident, the tanker had 117 tonnes of fuel oil, 45 tonnes of marine gas
oil (MGO) and 20,000 litres of lubricating oil on board.
4. Before arriving Hong Kong, China, the tanker had discharged all her cargo of 15,000
tonnes of aromatic products in her last port.
Summary of events
5. The tanker was on a ballast voyage to her loading port when she anchored at a dangerous
goods (DG) anchorage area within Hong Kong waters waiting to take bunker.
6. In the morning of the incident day, a local bunker supply barge moored to the tanker and
was connecting fuel oil hose to the tanker ready to supply bunker. Upon the fuel oil hose
was connected and the barge was ready to start the pumping operation, multiple
explosions occurred and fierce fire with heavy smoke was billowing from the tanker.
7. The Hong Kong Maritime Rescue Co‐ordination Centre (MRCC) of the Hong Kong Marine
Department (HKMD) upon receiving the incident report immediately initiated and
coordinated a search and rescue (SAR) operation. Hong Kong Marine Police (HKPF) and
relevant units/section1 of HKMD as well as Fire Services Department (FSD) were
dispatched to the scene to manage the incident. HKMD also served the role as the
1
The roles of these relevant units in the incident were: (a) harbour patrol unit for search and rescue as well as traffic control;
(b) pollution control unit for having pollution prevention measures in place; and (c) cargo ships safety section to carry out
risk assessment of the tanker’s safety and stability.
technical expert to carry out risk assessment of the tanker’s safety and stability in order to
provide advices to other parties involved in the SAR operation including fire fighting.
8. The FSD conducted firefighting operation and successfully extinguished the fire
approximately 5 hours after the incident occurred. When the fire was put off, the tanker
had developed a starboard list of about 25‐28 degrees.
9. It was reported that out of 27 crew members on board the tanker, 24 were rescued, 2
were missing and 1 dead body was found at sea. SAR operation continued in the waters
around the tanker for the next few days.
10. After the fire was extinguished, HKMD monitored the tanker’s fore and aft drafts at
regular intervals throughout the night. Given the drafts and the list of the tanker
remained the same over a long period of time, HKMD considered that the tanker’s
damage situation was stable thus allowing the Fire Services Department to board the
tanker on the second day to carry out shipboard SAR operation aiming to find the missing
persons.
11. On day 3, HKMD boarded the tanker for shipboard structural damage assessment. The
information collected was used to formulate a salvage plan under discussion with
shipowner’s representatives, P&I Club as well as shipowner appointed salvage experts.
12. On day 4, SAR operation was terminated. Unfortunately, missing persons were not found.
13. On day 15, salvage operation began aiming to upright the tanker within 5 degrees list.
Water from damaged cargo tanks and intact ballast tanks was transferred from the tanker
to a reception barge. The list of the tanker was corrected to approximately 5 degrees
after few days of salvage operation. Subsequently, the damaged tanker was towed to a
nearby shipyard outside Hong Kong waters.
Probable findings
14. The probable findings from the preliminary investigation were:
(a) the tanker began gas freeing process as soon as she departed the last cargo
discharge port. However, the gas freeing process had not been completed and
stopped when the tanker entered Hong Kong waters under pilotage for anchoring at
the DG anchorage area as well as the subsequent bunkering. Stopping the gas
freeing process mid‐way could have left an explosive atmosphere inside cargo tanks
for prolonged period of time thus increasing the risk of explosion drastically;
(b) the tanker failed to monitor the flammable level of the atmosphere inside cargo
tanks throughout the gas freeing process. Monitoring of the atmosphere inside
cargo tanks on a continuous basis would have alerted the tanker staff of any arising
dangerous situation thus allowing staff the time to take any appropriate explosion
prevention actions in advance ; and
(c) it was reported that a petty officer was assigned to take charge of the gas freeing
process rather than a responsible officer. The petty officer might not be familiar
with the safety measures required to control any hazard of the residue of the type of
cargo carried.
Discussion
15. The incident posed a potential enormous risk to the environment and the port safety of
Hong Kong. The Hong Kong Government highly prioritised this incident and allocated all
available resources to appropriately manage the situation in order to confine potential
damages as well as minimize casualty. The Hong Kong Government recognised that
effective crisis management would involve the coordinated interactions of many public
and private sectors and the following were some of the practices we adopted in the
handling of this incident.
(a) Identification of Risks
The primary risks that identified were:
(i) sinking/capsizing of vessel;
(ii) pollution;
(iii) risk of life of firefighting parties from fire and secondary explosion;
(iv) public safety;
(v) risk to on board inspection personnel due to heavy listing of the tanker; and
(vi) uncertain weather conditions; etc.
16. Any decision making on the basis of wrong information could be disastrous and therefore
it was of paramount importance to identify all hazards and risks while handling the
incident. One of the major obstacles we faced in the handling of this incident was the lack
of information, such as the structural configuration and the stability integrity of the tanker
as well as the layout of the cargo tanks.
17. Since the principal parties of interest were not located in Hong Kong, it proved to be
difficult to obtain the aforementioned information within a tight time frame.
18. With the handicap of lacking the structural plans and stress analysis of the damaged
tanker, we had to rely on gathering onsite first‐hand information by conducting
external/internal visual inspection of the tanker (hull/tanks damage condition and draft
marks etc.), interviewing crew members and analysing of the photos taken on board.
19. Indeed, boarding the damaged tanker for information collection purpose had posed safety
concern on the boarding teams. In future, we may consider to apply advanced technology
such as the use of hazardous proof drones to facilitate our work.
(b) Establishment of clear communication channels
20. The existing communication channels established for marine incident response proved to
be successful in handling this tanker explosion incident. At the onset of any severe
marine emergency, the Marine Department will trigger General Purpose Contingency Plan
(GPCP).
21. The GPCP establishes several teams and sets out a clearly defined command chain. The
teams under the GPCP are namely the: (i) Strategic Command; (ii) Tactical Command; and
(iii) Executive Field Command. Each commander team has its corresponding checklists,
procedural guidelines and instructions to whom to report to. The GPCP has allowed the
commanders to make correct decisions by getting hold of the full picture of any
emergency situation; reducing misinformation; assuring an effective communication flow
and increasing the timeliness of messaging.
Human resource allocation
22. The principal departmental resource of HKMD is our workforce with staff of professional
knowledge of naval architects, marine engineers and master mariners thus effectively
forming a highly synergetic platform to handle risk assessment as well as salvage planning
for the incident. The success of the handling of the incident also demonstrated the
essence of having an effective coordinated interactions between the Government (HKMD,
HKPF and FSD etc.) and private sectors (such as the shipowners, P&I club and salvage team
etc.).
Recommendations
23. It is recommended that APHoMSA members:
(a) Note the information provided
(b) Note the lessons learnt and in particular the importance of information gathering
from all sources.
(c) Note the importance of incident response guidelines.
(d) Offer any input in the handling similar issues and share practical experiences.