Malaccan Mishap

IN A DRILL THAT HAS GROWN ALL TOO FAMILIAR, SALvage and fire-control specialists were rushed to the scene of a burning oil tanker, this time near the entrance to the Indian Ocean’s Malaccan Strait. The Danish-owned Maersk Navigator, carrying 78 million gal. of light crude, had collided with an empty Japanese tanker, rupturing one of the loaded vessel’s 12 tanks and setting it ablaze. Fortunately, most of the escaping oil quickly burned off or evaporated, calming fears of environmental damage to fishing waters and the coasts of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. By week’s end emergency workers had secured the drifting 260,000-ton ship to a tug and had brought the blaze under partial control. It was the third major tanker accident in as many weeks.