Another ship comes-a-visiting at Mumbai's Juhu beach
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In a repeat of the M V Wisdom episode, a much-smaller cargo vessel ran aground near the Juhu beach in north-west Mumbai on Sunday morning.
The Panama-flagged vessel M V Pavit, which has a capacity to hold 1,000 tonnes of cargo (as against M V Wisdom's 10,000 tonnes) run aground near Seven Bungalows and was suspected to have drifted on from the Persian Gulf, officials said here.
M V Wisdom had got stuck on Juhu beach in June, and could be salvaged after about three weeks.
"Pavit's crew was rescued somewhere in the Persian Gulf in the first week of July. Possibility of sailors being on board is less, as we did not get any SOS. It has possibly been drifting all along (since the rescue of sailors)," Director General of Shipping, S B Agnihotri, told PTI here.
An emergency towing vessel, which was hired following the M V Wisdom episode for the entire monsoon season, will be used to salvage the stuck vessel, Agnihotri said, declining to say how long it will take.
"They will take a professional call...as it's a smaller vessel, towing it out will not be very difficult," he said.
Wisdom was being towed towards the ship-breaking yard in Alang in Gujarat from Colombo, and snapping of some wires attaching it to towing ship caused it to drift.
As in the case of Wisdom, DGS feels that Pavit too is not carrying any cargo or fuel, so hopefully there would be no environmental fall-out. Agnihotri added that officials are trying to get in touch with Pavit's Dubai-based owners.
Meanwhile, the Coast Guard said in a statement issued here that M T Pavit had 10 tonnes of fuel and "gas-oil" each.
A Coast Guard ship and helicopter had been deployed for preliminary assessment of the situation, it said.
"The vessel assessed to be grounded at Juhu Beach without any apparent damage...it is double-bottom," it said.
The CG said an Indian-flagged ship, MT Jag Pushpa, had rescued 13 crewmen on board M T Pavit after receiving information that it had started drifting due to engine failure and ingress of water into the engine room, near the Oman coast.
All the 13 crewmen were brought to Sikka in Gujarat. The owner had received the information from the Thai Navy and U K Maritime Organisation afterwards that the ship had sunk, the statement said.
Due to this report, the owner had stopped monitoring movement of the vessel, the CG statement added.
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