By LONDON — A fuel tanker and a cargo vessel were involved in a fiery collision off the British coast in the North Sea on Monday, the U.K. coast guard said.
The tanker, MV Stena Immaculate, was struck by the Portugal-registered Solong container ship, according to a statement from Crowley, the company that manages the the tanker. The Stena Immaculate is a U.S. vessel that was anchored off the North Sea coast near Hull at the time, the company said.
“The Stena Immaculate sustained a ruptured cargo tank containing Jet-A1 fuel due to the (collision),” the statement said. “A fire occurred as a result of the (collision), and fuel was reported released.”
A defense official told NBC News that the ship was carrying fuel that was to be used by U.S. Navy ships.
The scene was one of chaos in video footage published by The Guardian newspaper, with both vessels apparently on fire and sending thick black smoke billowing into the gray North Sea sky.
One member of the Solong’s 14-person crew is missing, according to a statement from its ownership company, Ernst Russ.
The statement said that an emergency response team was “immediately activated” and the company remains in contact with them.
Crowley confirmed that all crew aboard the Stena Immaculate abandoned the vessel following multiple explosions onboard. Everyone was “safe and fully accounted for,” the company said.
Martyn Boyers, chief executive of the Port of Grimsby East, told Sky News that 32 people had been brought ashore alive. The town of Grimsby is around 60 miles southeast of the city of York.
“There was a line of ambulances waiting to take them to the Princess Diana hospital,” Boyers said.
“I’m concerned to hear of the collision between two vessels in the North Sea this morning and am liaising with officials and HM Coastguard as the situation develops,” British Transport Minister Heidi Alexander said in a post on X.
“I want to thank all emergency service workers involved for their continued efforts in responding to the incident,” she added.
A spokesperson for British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the situation was “extremely concerning” and details are still “becoming clear.”
“We’re obviously monitoring the situation, we’ll continue to co-ordinate the response and we’re grateful to emergency personnel for their continued efforts,” the spokesperon said.
While NBC News has been unable to independently verify that information, the nonprofit Royal National Lifeboat Institution said in a statement that four lifeboat crews had been called to support two ships after they had collided off the East Yorkshire coast early Monday.
“There were reports that a number of people had abandoned the vessels following a collision and there were fires on both ships,” the RNLI said in a media statement.
It added that at shortly before midday local time, while its Cleethorpes crew had been called back, three more crews from Bridlington, Mablethorpe and Skegness continued to support search and rescue efforts.
The Stena Immaculate had been sailing from the Greek port of Agioi Theodori, near Athens, while the Solong had just left the nearby British port of Immingham and was on its way to Rotterdam in the Netherlands, according to Marine Traffic, a maritime analytics provider.
His Majesty’s Coastguard, which acts as the United Kingdom’s national maritime emergency service, earlier said that it was coordinating a response to reports of a collision between a tanker and cargo vessel off the coast of East Yorkshire in England.
It said an alarm was raised alerting the agency to the incident at 9:48 a.m. local time (5:48 a.m. ET).
A coast guard rescue helicopter was last being dispatched to respond to the collision, the British government’s Maritime and Coastguard Agency said in a media statement.
It added that a coast guard aircraft and nearby vessels with “fire-fighting capability” were also being deployed.
