Near the sea off Ponte 16 in Macau's inner harbour, at about 7:00 p.m. yesterday (25th), a number of ships suddenly caught fire, and "the serial ships were set on fire". There was an explosion.
The Macao Fire Services, Customs and Maritime Affairs Bureau, together with the rescue departments in Zhuhai, including the China Coast Guard, also sent a number of vessels to the scene to shoot water for rescue.
About six ships were burned at the scene.
Authorities said the fire was brought under control after more than two hours.
Until today (26th) at 5:30 in the morning, as seen at the scene, there was still an open fire in the cabin of one of the involved vessels, and the rescue vessel continued to shoot water at the involved vessel; as for the other vessels that had no open flames, they continued to shoot water. Cool down to prevent a resurgence.
The Director of Marine and Water Affairs, Huang Suiwen, explained the incident at 10 o'clock last night, saying that around 7 o'clock last night, the Bureau and the Customs launched a fishing moratorium in the inner port fire prevention deployment, and a fire was found during patrols.
The chain involved is composed of more than 10 boats, and it is the longest chain of boats berthed during the fishing moratorium.
After the fire broke out, at least 6 fishing boats have been affected so far. All ship owners and owners have been contacted to confirm that no one is on the fishing boat.
The Maritime and Water Bureau dispatched 9 boats to rescue.
At about 9 o'clock last night, the bureau towed one of the boats back to the dock for fire rescue, and there were still 5 boats waiting to be rescued at sea.
Huang continued to point out that due to the burning of the serial ship and the 6 explosions of petroleum gas, the flames were uncontrollably spread out, increasing the difficulty of rescue.
Huang Suiwen also bluntly stated that the authorities had seriously appealed to the fishing boats in the port to send people or form teams to inspect the boats, but at the time of the incident, the six fishing boats were unguarded and could not cut the cables and drive away during the fire, resulting in "burning the serial boats".
Liang Yusen, the chief of the fire department, said that the fishing boat that was towed back to the shore still had an open flame, and it still needed to spray water to cool down after the fire was completely extinguished.
Li Yuhui, Assistant Commissioner of Customs, said that there was a danger of an explosion at the fire scene. He emphasized that the safety of human life must be the first priority, so he prevented some shore owners from requesting to disembark and leave.
He continued that the customs dispatched 13 boats and 100 personnel to rescue; the mainland dispatched 6 boats to help put out the fire.
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Macau's serial boat on fire
