Ruby dumped 300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer into the North Sea because it was feared that the fertilizer was contaminated with fuel oil.
The fertilizer ship MV Ruby, which was out of control in the Baltic Sea in the fall, has landed on the east coast of England in the city of Great Yarmouth, says the British Broadcasting Company BBC.
According to the BBC, Ruby dumped 300 tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer into the North Sea because it was feared that the fertilizer was contaminated with fuel oil.
The ship is loaded with 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate. It is an insensitive explosive, which means that something must be mixed with it to explode.
Before Great Yarmouth, the ship was in the port of Kent and in the English Channel. At the end of September, Ruby was supposed to sail to Malta, where it would not have been received.
Ruby originally set off in August from Russia’s Kantalahti on the Kola Peninsula, from where it was supposed to travel to Las Palmas in the Canary Islands of Spain. The ship ran into an arctic storm on the way and spent a long time looking for a port for repairs. Ruby received negative responses from various ports on the Baltic Sea coast.
2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate caused a devastating explosion in the port of Beirut four years ago. Ruby’s cargo has been seven times that.