7 News Belize

Cargo Ship Runs Aground Off English Caye
posted (July 16, 2012)
The word went out early this morning that a cargo vessel had run aground on the reef near the English Caye Channel.

IT sent off an alarm, because this sort of thing has happened before with disastrous effect to the reef.

7news went to the area today and found out why this case is not as serious as previously though, but serious nonetheless:

Daniel Ortiz reporting
The vessel you are looking at is a Jamaican-registered cargo ship. Its name is the MV Paranga, and it currently has 214 tons on fuel onboard, along with several tons of agricultural products.

Now, the vessel may look as though it's perfectly afloat in the sea, but make no mistake, it is stuck at its' current location - run aground due to a navigation error.

If you look closely, you will see water flowing out the side. It is an attempt by the crew to get it to float a bit higher, but these vessels have thousands of gallons of sea water onboard, which is used to stabilize them while they make their voyages.

Sometime around 9 a.m. this morning, The Belize Port Authority received a call which signaled to them that the MV Paranga had run aground at latitude 17 degrees, 19 minutes north, and longitude 88 degrees, 2 minutes west - or approximately 2 miles southeast of English Caye.

They immediately deployed a team along with the National Coast Guard and the Department of Environment.

All the teams involved made contact with the vessel and its crew, where they were informed that the vessel was attempting make its way out of Belize to Kingston, Jaimaica, when a navigation error caused the crew to misjudge the depth of the waters.

When we got out there, a representative of the Coast Guard informed us that based on their initial assessments; they believe that the vessel did not hit any sections of the barrier reef, as was widely speculated.

Also, the vessel remains intact -none of its cargo was damaged due to the accident, and none of its 13 crew members were hurt.

When we left this evening at around 4:30 p.m. the officials were still out making their inspections and assessing the situation, as to whether or not there was any damage.

We'll have more on this story tomorrow.

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