Multiple explosions and fires erupted on a cargo ship bound for India's financial capital Mumbai on Monday, causing 40 containers to fall into the Arabian Sea and forcing several crew members to jump overboard to escape the flames, officials said.The Singapore-flagged WAN HAI 503 met with an accident about 144km off the coast of the southern Indian state of Kerala, said Shekhar Kuriakose, secretary of the state's disaster management authority.It said the 268-metre vessel caught fire some 78 nautical miles off Beypore port.’According to preliminary information … there were 22 workers on board the ship … 18 jumped into the sea and are in rescue boats. Efforts are underway to rescue them,’ he said, adding that the vessel was not ‘currently sinking’.Singapore's Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said in a statement that there were ‘some injuries’ among the crew, with four members unaccounted for.Pictures and videos shared by the Indian coast guard on X showed a thick plume of black smoke rising from the ship, and some containers lying open and in disarray near the point where the smoke was escaping.Singapore's MPA said that, of the total crew of 22, 18 had been ‘accounted for and are in the process of being transferred from lifeboats to a passing vessel’, adding that ‘some injuries have been reported among them’.It said four crew members remain unaccounted for.’The Indian Coast Guard and Indian Navy are rendering assistance to the crew and conducting search and rescue operations for the missing crew,’ the MPA said.’Vessel is presently on fire and adrift,’ a defence ministry public relations officer said on X.Officials did not disclose the nature of the cargo in the containers, nor what caused the explosions.A container vessel sank in another accident off Kerala last month, releasing 100 cargo containers into the Arabian Sea. The directorate general of shipping said on Friday there were no reports of oil pollution because of that incident.
