Risk of container fires unabated

The sad fate of X-Press Pearl is the latest in a disappointing recent and persistent catalogue of container ship fires of varying degrees of severity, occurring on an almost weekly basis, the TT Club has said. The vast majority of these are caused by a cargo of a hazardous nature. One estimate puts the number of mis- or undeclared dangerous cargoes in excess of 150,000 containers a year – each of which has potential to cause a disaster. While still to be fully investigated, the catalyst for the inferno on X-Press Pearl has been asserted to be a leakage of nitric acid, which was correctly declared but apparently incorrectly packaged or packed.