SANAA, 20 November 2004 — An oil tanker mysteriously caught fire off the western Yemeni port of Houdieda on Thursday night and firefighters battled for nearly 24 hours before extinguishing the blaze yesterday.
The Naftulyemen-17, carrying about 11,000 tons of diesel fuel, caught fire late Thursday as it was preparing to unload at the Red Sea port, officials said.
The port’s director Ahmad Ali Ba-Ubaid told Arab News that firefighters completely extinguished the fire by yesterday evening.
Speaking by telephone from Houdieda, some 260 kilometers west of the capital Sanaa, Ba-Ubaid said no fuel leakage occurred at the spot of the incident. He said an investigation would be launched.
Ba-Ubaid also said all crewmembers were rescued unhurt immediately after the fire erupted in the ship’s engine room.
The port director said earlier that three fireboats were called in to douse the flames but could not get close to the tanker because of the intense heat. Residents in Houdieda said they could see billowing flames and smoke rising from the ship.
Ba-Ubaid said the rear part of the ship was heavily damaged because the firefighters initially focussed on protecting the oil tanks. He said the fire started in the engine room and spread quickly to engulf the entire vessel as it was preparing to berth at the port’s wharf.
The state-run Saba news agency, however, provided a different account on the cause of the fire.
Quoting an unnamed source at the port, it said the blaze was sparked by an electrical short circuit that it said happened as the tanker was unloading at the port.
A fire brigade official confirmed Ba-Ubaid’s account, saying the tanker, that transported the fuel from an oil refinery at the Arabian Sea port of Aden, was about 13 miles off the Houdieda port when the fire broke out.
Officials of the Yemeni Overseas Oil Services Co., the owner of the stricken tanker, could not be reached for comment.
