A half-sunken vessel
carrying corrosive chemicals in the middle reaches of the Yangtze
River was successfully raised Monday, local authorities
said.
It took more than 100
workers about 80 hours to salvage the vessel registered as
"Xianghan Shouwei 0298".
Chen Honglin, vice head
of the rescue headquarters, said the vessel, loaded with 609 tons
of liquid caustic soda, started to sink at 4:00 a.m. Friday off
Zhicheng Harbor in Yidu City, Hubei Province.
He noted that no leakage
or pollution resulted in the mishap and no casualties were
reported.
The ship was traveling
to Hunan Province when its owner contacted the local government for
help at about 7:00 a.m. Friday after failing to salvage the ship
himself.
A rescue ship and a
salvage team arrived at the scene that day to carry out repairs to
prevent the vessel from completely sinking. By Saturday noon, four
acid and alkaline resistant pumps were in use to drain the
chemicals.
Salvage workers
retrieved the corrosive chemicals Sunday.
The local maritime
bureau was carrying out an investigation to determine the cause of
incident.
(Xinhua News Agency
December 18, 2007)
