Stricken ship threatens North Sea gas platform
Source: Reuters
(Adds details about ship's registration) By Paul Hughes LONDON, Jan 11 (Reuters) - A cargo ship adrift in a stormy North Sea narrowly missed smashing into a gas platform on Thursday, prompting rescue services to pluck workers off the structure. All 30 people on the Murdoch platform were airlifted to safety and its operator ConocoPhillips <COP.N> shut down production as a precautionary measure. The stricken vessel, the Vindo, floated past the installation, which lies in the southern North Sea 43 miles (69 kms) off Britain's east coast, at around 2200 GMT. "It has passed the platform," said a spokeswoman for the Maritime and Coastguard Agency. "But there are some other platforms in the area. They are some distance away." Crew on the Vindo, carrying 4,200 tonnes of fertiliser and registered in Antigua and Barbuda, briefly managed to restart its engines and tugs were sent to the scene to try to alter the ship's course. Helicopters were on standby to take off the Vindo's nine crew. Tony Tewton, watch manager of Humber Coastguard which was coordinating the rescue, described conditions as "very difficult" with high winds and waves of 6 metres (20 feet). The Vindo broke down on Thursday afternoon nine miles (14 km) from the platform. Both the British and Irish weather centres issued gale warnings for all coastal regions on Thursday as winds gusted at up to 80 miles per hour. SEVEN MISSING OFF IRISH COAST A helicopter winched two Lithuanian fishermen to safety off Ireland's southeast coast on Thursday but seven were still missing after two trawlers sunk in rough seas, the Irish Coast Guard said. The two crew members of the 24-metre timber fishing vessel The Honeydew 2, which operates out of Kinsale, were lifted from a life raft where they had spent the last 20 hours. "The two men are now on board a coast guard helicopter and will be taken to Waterford Regional Hospital to be checked out medically," Irish Coast Guard spokeswoman Veronica Scanlan said. The search for the trawler's other two crew members by a helicopter, naval vessel and life boat, would continue for at least another two hours, she added. Earlier search and rescue services called off for the night a nearby hunt for the crew of the 20-metre Pere Charles which sent a distress signal just after 6 p.m. (1800 GMT) on Wednesday before sinking about 2.5 miles off the port of Rosslare. An empty life raft from the Pere Charles washed up on shore on Thursday. The boat has a crew of four Irish citizens and one Eastern European, believed to be from Lithuania. (Additional reporting by Paul Hoskins and Chris Baldwin in Dublin, and Deborah Haynes in London)
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