Indian Navy warship extinguished a massive blaze onboard a merchant vessel on Saturday night after a missile in the Gulf of Aden struck it. Indian Navy’s guided missile destroyer, INS Visakhapatnam, responded to a SOS call from merchant vessel Marlin Launda after it was targeted by a missile on 26 January. The oil tanker had 22 Indians and one Bangladeshi national on board.
In a statement, the Indian Navy said that a team of 10 firefighters from the NBCD team controlled the fire after six hours. “Fire onboard MV Marlin Luanda brought under control. After six hours of battling the fire along with the crew of the MV, the firefighting team successfully brought the fire under control. The team is currently monitoring the situation to rule out any possibility of re-ignition,” the Navy said, adding that a US and French warship also responded to the vessel’s distress call.
Fire onboard MV #MarlinLuanda brought under control
Based on request from Master of the MV, the fire fighting team from #INSVisakhapatnam comprising 10 Indian Naval personnel with specialist fire fighting equipment embarked the vessel in early hours of #27Jan 24.
After six… https://t.co/d5yxgWI42Y pic.twitter.com/RsLPKOpXTU— SpokespersonNavy (@indiannavy) January 27, 2024
The Navy also shared a video of the merchant ship’s Captain thanking the Indian Navy warship’s personnel for responding to the SOS call. “I thank the Indian Navy warship INS Visakhapatnam. We had lost all hope of fighting this fire. Hats off to the Indian Navy, whose experts came onboard to fight the fire. Indian Navy went out of the way to help us,” Abhilash Rawat, Captain of the merchant vessel, said.
The US Central Command (CENTCOM) said that the vessel, owned by a UK-based company, was hit by a ballistic missile fired by Yemen’s Houthi rebels. The group has been targeting merchant vessels in the Red Sea amid the raging Israel-Hamas conflict.
Team BharatShakti
