Cargo Ship Loses Container Overboard

the A container that may have held several tonnes of hazardous material slipped off the deck of a Finnish-owned ship and into the Baltic Sea on Saturday morning. The incident occurred near the southern coast of the Swedish island Gotland. The ship’s owner Langh Ship Oy said three containers fell overboard after one container on deck collapsed under the weight of three others. According to the ship's cargo declaration, one of the containers held several tonnes of material used in the chemical and plastic industries. However Sigurjon Markusson, the managing director of sea carrier Containership which had leased the ship, said the cargo that fell into sea was not hazardous to the environment. The Swedish Coastguard is planning to search the area for the container.Cargo ship Linda in the Baltic Sea off the coast of Gotland.Niklas Guseff of the Maritime rescue co-ordination centre (MRCC) in Turku said the ship's crew contacted the centre following the incident. He added that such accidents are rare. Guseff said it’s difficult to say what happened to the container. However it could cause damage to the environment if it begins to leak. Guseff added that the Finnish Maritime Administration is working together with Swedish officials on the matter. The captain of the ship Jouko Blomqvist said the load had been secured according to regulations. ”This has never happened to before. We were quite shocked that this was even possible,” he said. The vessel was en route from Rotterdam to St. Petersburg when the accident occurred.