Shipwreck

On 17 June 2013, MOL Comfort suffered a crack amidships in bad weather about 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi) off the coast of Yemen and eventually broke into two after hogging. The vessel was underway from Singapore to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, with a cargo of 4,382 containers equivalent to 7,041 TEU. The crew of 26—14 Filipinos, one Ukrainian, and 11 Russians—abandoned the ship and were rescued from two liferafts and a lifeboat by three other container vessels, German-flagged container ship Yantian Express of Hapag-Lloyd, Panamaian-flagged Hanjin Beijing of now-defunct Hanjin Shipping and ZIM's ZIM India, sailed under British flag. These vessels were diverted to the site of incident by ICG Mumbai.^[5][6][7] After the structural failure, both sections remained afloat with the majority of the cargo intact and began drifting in an east-northeast direction. Smit Salvage Singapore was contracted to tow the sections to safety.^[8]

On 24 June, four oceangoing tugboats arrived at the scene and began towing the bow section to safety.^[9] Before salvage operations of the stern section could begin, water ingress was reported on 26 June.^[10] On the following day, the stern sank at 14°26′N 66°26′E to a depth of 4,000 metres (13,000 ft). Some of the approximately 1,700 containers on board were later confirmed floating near the site. While no major oil leak was reported, the stern section was said to contain about 1,500 tons of fuel.^[11]

On 2 July, the tow of the bow section broke free in bad weather,^[12] but the towing line was reattached the next day.^[8] On 6 July, a fire broke out in the rear of the bow section. Unable to control the blaze in bad weather, the salvage vessels requested help from the Indian Coast Guard patrol boat Samudra Prahari with external firefighting equipment.^[13] By 10 July, most of the 2,400 containers on board had been destroyed by fire.^[14] The damaged bow section sank the next night at 19°56′N 65°25′E to a depth of 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) with what remained of the cargo and 1,600 metric tons of fuel oil in the tanks. No spill apart from a thin oil film on the surface was reported.^[15] The cause of the fire is unknown.

The exact cause of the accident is not known. On 4 July, Mitsui O.S.K. Lines appointed Lloyd's Register to support investigations into the cause of the incident.^[16] As a precaution, the sister ships of MOL Comfort were withdrawn from the same route and their hull structures will be upgraded to increase the longitudinal strength. In addition, operational changes will be implemented to reduce stress on the vessels' hulls.^[17]

The sinking of MOL Comfort cost insurers between 300 and 400 million dollars in claims. The hull and machinery of the vessel were insured for $66 million.^[18] By December 2014, the insurers (Tokio Marine & Nichido Fire Insurance Co.) were among 100 companies, including Mitsui O.S.K. Lines Ltd., who had launched lawsuits against MHI, reportedly on the grounds that the accident and consequent loss of ship and cargo was caused by a design flaw in the freighter.^[19]

As of 2017^[update], the loss of all 4,293 containers on board is the largest number of containers lost in a single event.^[20]