COLOMBO: Sri Lanka’s navy was on Wednesday battling a major fire aboard a massive container ship travelling from Singapore to Egypt.

The navy said it had received a distress call on Tuesday when the 14,000-container carrier was about 120 nautical miles (222 kilometres) away from Sri Lanka.

It dispatched a specialist fire-fighting ship to lead a fleet of smaller vessels out to sea to douse the fire aboard the Panama-registered MSC Daniela.

“There are no casualties among the 22-member crew,” spokesman Chaminda Walakuluge said.

“An Indian coastguard vessel which was on a port call to Colombo has also joined the fire fighting effort.”

Walakuluge said the cause of the fire was not known.

The vessel has now been guided to a location just north of the Colombo port.

Published in Dawn, April 6th, 2017