August 7: A Shipping Corporation of India (SCI) vessel sprang a leak and partially sank at its anchorage on the shallow bottom inside the Mumbai port.At around 3 pm this evening, water began flooding into the engine room of the MV Vishva Nandini after a gash two metres high and half-a-metre wide in the engine room ripped open. The vessel immediately began taking in water and its stern touched the sea bottom. It is feared that the vessel hit a sunken wreck.

Fortunately the 13,000-tonne general cargo vessel was in shallow waters at the `F-2' anchorage position approximately one nautical mile off the Gateway of India.

The ship rested its bottom on the bottom of the channel around 9 metres deep, even as an emergency salvage operation was launched by the Mumbai Port Trust, Indian Navy and the SCI. The 40-member crew was evacuated.

This is the third instance of disaster striking a merchant vessel near Mumbai after last Saturday's sinking of the Sea Princess and the June 19 sinking of the M V Arcadia Pride which killed 24 crew.

The ship was a beehive of activity with MBPT officials, naval, police and SCI personnel swarming the deck shouting out instructions. A number of police launches and a MBPT tug bobbed in the brown waters near the ship.

``We are trying to block the gash,'' a naval official told Express Newsline on board the stricken vessel as teams of naval divers jammed improvised canvas rolls into the gash below the water line. The aircraft carrier INS Virat anchored nearby provided material assistance to the beleagured SCI vessel, even as naval helicopters from the INS Kunjal naval base cluttered overhead.

The container-oriented vessel which had arrived in Mumbai on Sunday was on a liner run was loaded with 9,600-tonnes of general cargo including 50 containers. Both SCI Chairman P K Srivastav and Director Liner Services Captain Devender Singh could not be reached for comment.

According to a faxed SCI press statement - ``It is the perception of the SCI that there is no immediate threat to this 19-year-old vessel which was built in Germany. At the time of going to the press there is no apparent report of damage to the cargo. Rescue and salvage efforts are being mounted round the clock. An emergency control room has been set up at the SCI headquarters in the shipping house in Mumbai.'

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.