Route of the Morning Midas ship when it was deserted in the midst of the Pacific Ocean, southwest of Alaska. (Bloomberg)
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A ship carrying about 3,000 vehicles to Mexico was deserted in the midst of the Pacific Ocean after catching hearth June 3, highlighting a rising threat to the transportation of electrical autos.
The fireplace aboard the Morning Midas occurred about 300 miles south of Adak Island in Alaska, based on the U.S. Coast Guard. Smoke was first seen coming from a deck of the vessel, whose cargo included about 800 EVs, the ship’s supervisor, Zodiac Maritime, stated in an announcement.
The crew initiated firefighting procedures, however the blaze couldn’t be introduced beneath management, Zodiac stated. Responders had been being deployed to help salvage and firefighting operations, it added. A spokesperson for the agency declined to touch upon who owns the autos.
The Coast Guard evacuated all 22 crew members, transferring them to a close-by service provider ship.
The 46,800-ton Morning Midas, in-built 2006 by China’s Xiamen Shipbuilding Business Co., departed the port of Yantai on Could 26, based on ship-tracking knowledge compiled by Bloomberg. Earlier than that, it known as at two different Chinese language ports, Nansha within the south and Shanghai.
Demand for lithium-ion batteries, together with in EVs, is bringing new threat to the worldwide delivery trade, significantly given the worth of the autos on board the biggest car-carrying vessels, based on a report final month by insurance coverage large Allianz.
Whereas such ships haul 1000’s of autos at a time internationally’s oceans, a handful of great blazes have raised considerations about transporting them. Such incidents can have main ramifications for carmakers, shipowners and the companies that insure them.
Fires involving EVs are sometimes tougher to extinguish and extra harmful to combat. The circumstances of a tightly packed car-carrying cargo ship result in restricted air flow, which might quickly intensify warmth. The confined, steel-lined atmosphere makes hearth suppression and rescues considerably extra harmful.
#UPDATE 1: All 22 crew members evacuated the ship onto a liferaft & had been rescued by the vessel Cosco Hellas crew. USCG working with vessel mum or dad firm, Zodiac Maritime, to coordinate vessel restoration efforts.
📸 had been taken yesterday.
Press Launch: https://t.co/UNQZfYVoUo https://t.co/JD8PxrUfGh pic.twitter.com/tFGnIlqBYW
— USCGAlaska (@USCGAlaska) June 4, 2025
Additionally, when an electrical automobile burns, it does so for longer and the hearth will get hotter. The flames can find yourself accelerating by chain reactions and spiraling uncontrolled rapidly, a course of known as thermal runaway. EV fires can take as much as 8,000 gallons of water to chill the lithium-ion batteries.
In 2022, a vessel carrying about 4,000 autos caught hearth within the Atlantic and ended up sinking regardless of efforts to tow it to security. A 12 months later, one other ship with shut to three,000 vehicles on board caught hearth close to the Dutch coast.
Shipowners have taken steps to attempt to handle the security dangers concerned in hauling electrical autos. Final 12 months, a key security group revealed pointers on the way to cope with fires on board the vessels.
