The barge, which measures 122 m long and more than 36 m wide, ran aground on a pebble beach in a place where there are no rocks or reefs. It did not fracture.
A barge measuring more than 120 m long ran aground on Sunday at midday on a beach in Sotteville-sur-Mer (Seine-Maritime) after drifting into the English Channel under the effect of the violent winds from storm Darragh , we learned from the maritime prefecture for the Channel and the North Sea. The stranding (unintentional stranding), which occurred shortly after 1 p.m. on a pebble beach, did not cause any casualties and “there is no proven risk of pollution”a spokesperson for the maritime prefecture told AFP, stressing that the AMT Challenger barge was empty.
In a press release, the Seine-Maritime prefecture explains that the barge “detached from the Maltese-flagged tugboat Boka Glacier in the English Channel, in British waters” Friday. It began to drift on Friday evening and continued on its way all day Saturday, arriving “in French waters around 11 p.m. last night” SATURDAY. “The Belgian tug Princess and the French tug Abeille Horizon went alongside the empty container barge and its tug to try to assist them”continues the prefecture of Seine-Maritime.
Due “very degraded weather conditions due to the Darragh storm, several operations in the Channel to reattach the barge or set up an anchorage at sea were carried out” under the coordination of the maritime prefecture and the Gris-Nez Regional Operational Surveillance and Rescue Center (CROSS) but they were unable to succeed, underlines the press release. The barge, lacking a propeller, had no crew but “intervention teams had been airlifted on board” to try to regain control, said the maritime prefecture.
The barge, which measures 122 m long and more than 36 m wide according to maritime information sites, ran aground on a pebble beach in a place where there are no rocks or reefs and “she didn’t fracture”underlined the spokesperson. “There were no oil slicks spilled into the sea”he said. Tugboats remain near the site of the grounding if it were to return to sea “but for the moment, it is stabilized on the coast”. The Seine-Maritime prefecture indicates that a command post will be deployed in Veules-les-Roses and that the mayors of the municipalities concerned have been alerted.
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