On the night of Monday 12th July, 1999 the 1998 built 2,102 TEU containership CMA DJAKARTA caught fire off Crete following an explosion.
The vessel, owned by Gebr Winter of Hamburg, was on long-term charter to Compagnie Maritime d’Affretement (CMA), Marseilles from 9th April, 1999. She was deployed on CMA’s North Europe/Japan/China service, NCJ-TPX U.S. West Coast/Asia/Europe service of CMACGM and was enroute between Damietta, Egypt, and Malta at the time of the accident . The initial fire was followed by a series of explosions, and the master and crew abandoned ship (21 in all) to be picked up by an Italian warship, which took them to Haifa, Israel. She burned for several days, drifted towards the Egyptian coast and finally ran aground here with the owner contracted SMIT TAK for salvage operations both for the ship & Cargo.
There was an explosion and fire on board, attributable to the fact that two containers carried explosive chemicals (Calcium Hypochlorite), in breach of the “dangerous cargo” clause. After the fire on board was extinguished, the ship was salvaged and was safely towed to Malta by the 1977 built 67 metres salvage tug MATSAS STAR of which both entered Malta Freeport on Saturday 14th August, 1999 berthing at Freeport Terminal 2.
On Monday 14th August she was towed to Malta Drydocks where all cargo was discharged for investigations and damage assessment.
On Saturday 21st August, 1999 she left Malta Drydocks towed to a Croatian Shipyard at Rijeka for repairs.
In 2016 she was sold for demolition and was seen in 2012 as CLASSICA at Malta Freeport.
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Published – Thursday 17th March, 2022.
