According to the Norwegian media, the cargo contains many times more ammonium nitrate than in the Beirut explosions in 2020. The ship has now been towed further away from the city.
The cargo ship Ruby, which left Kantalahti in Russia, drove to the emergency port of Tromssa in northern Norway on Tuesday, because the ship was damaged due to running aground, informs the Tromssa area police.
The cargo of the Malta-registered ship is 20,000 tons of ammonium nitrate, which is an explosive fertilizer raw material. There is seven times more of it on the ship than in the devastating explosions in the port of Beirut in 2020, says a northern Norwegian online news site The Barents Observer.
In the explosions in Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, in August 2020, at least more than a hundred people died and thousands were injured, when an ammonium nitrate warehouse in the port exploded.
A university campus with thousands of students and a hospital with approximately 6,500 employees and approximately 600 patient beds are located near the port of Tromssa, says The Barents Observer.
The ship was towed from the port of Tromsø to the Vannøya anchorage north of Tromsø on Wednesday morning, says the director of communications Dag Inge Aarhus From the Norwegian Maritime Agency by e-mail.
The Norwegian Coastal Administration gave permission for the vessel to be moved for temporary repairs, Aarhus says.
– When the temporary repairs are completed, a sailing permit for the actual repair yard will be considered in cooperation with the flag state and the classification society. The deadline for such approval is still unclear, he writes.
In the port of Tromssa, there are similar tugs and ship transfers daily all year round. This ship is big, but far from the biggest ones that regularly run in the port, The Tromsø police say in their press release.
Ammonium nitrate is used as a raw material for fertilizers, but it can also be used in explosives. It is one of Russia’s most important export products to the world and is produced in the Murmansk region in northwestern Russia.
The port of Tromssa, like other ports in northern Norway, is also important for Finland’s security of supply.