Incident Report

Subject:         UK - Dozens evacuated from oil platform after ship carrying radioactive waste catches fire in the North Sea

Date of Email report:  Thu 09/10/2014 06:35

Report Detail:

An oil platform in the North Sea was evacuated after a cargo vessel carrying radioactive waste began drifting towards it.  Crew on the ship, the MV Parida, shut down its engines after a fire started in one of its funnels as they tried to carry out repairs.  The ship, which was on its way from Scotland to Belgium, started to drift towards the Beatrice oil platform 15 miles south east of Wick on the north east coast of Scotland.  All 52 people on the oil platform, which can be seen from the shore, were airlifted off it and the rig was shut down as a precaution, Shetland Coastguard said. 

The oil workers were lifted off by rescue helicopter 137 from RAF Lossiemouth and coastguard helicopter 102 from Sumburgh.  Meanwhile all 15 crew members on the Danish-owned Parida remained on board, and the ship's cargo was said to have been unaffected by the fire.   The Parida was transporting Belgian cement waste back to Belgium after collecting it from Dounreay nuclear plant in Caithness where it had been reprocessed.  Shetland Coastguard was called at around 8pm last night and arranged for its emergency towing vessel to attend the scene from Orkney, but the Parida's operators arranged for the ship to be towed by a commercial vessel to Cromarty Firth, where it dropped anchor.

The ship is now expected to undergo repairs before continuing its journey back to Antwerp.   A spokesman for Ithaca Energy, which owns the platform, said they hoped to return staff to the platform today.

'Because the ship was drifting overnight towards our platform we did what is standard procedure and shut the platform down and evacuated all personnel to shore, and that worked very safely and efficiently,' he said.   'We are going to focus on getting our people back out to the platform today and do what we need to start production again.' Scotland's Environment Secretary Richard Lochhead said ministers had been informed about the movements of the ship, which is listed on shipping websites as sailing under a Danish flag.    Lang Banks, director of WWF Scotland said: 'This incident highlights the problems of dealing with the hazardous and expensive radioactive mess that the nuclear industry always leaves in its wake.  'Given all the severe weather warnings, questions need to be asked as to why a vessel carrying radioactive material was at sea at all.' 

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