A Mitsui OSK Lines containership is being checked for damage after suffering a fire off Sri Lanka.
The Japanese shipowner said on Monday that the 8,110-teu MOL Charisma (built 2007) was diverted to Colombo on 1 September.
The blaze began in number five cargo hold while the ship was east of Sri Lanka.
"She has diverted to Colombo for inspection after the fire was brought under control by injecting CO2 into the cargo hold, and arrived there on 3 September," MOL told TradeWinds.
"All officers and crew onboard are unharmed, and no pollution reported."
Hapag-Lloyd, MOL's partner in THE Alliance group of boxship operators, said the vessel was employed in its Pacific South 3 (PS3) service.
The ship was 250 miles (400 km) east of Colombo, the German line added, en route from Port Kelang, Malaysia, to Nhava Sheva in India.
Schedule evaluated
"Ship’s crew are closely monitoring the situation," Hapag-Lloyd said.
"We are also currently evaluating any potential impact on vessel and cargo operations and berthing dates for the subsequent ports of the rotation as vessel schedule will be changed, as this vessel, after completion of the PS3 voyage, was originally scheduled to be deployed in our Indamex service between the Indian cubcontinent and the US east coast."
The Indamex voyage will instead be performed by another MOL boxship.
AIS data showed MOL Charisma still anchored off Colombo on Monday.
The vessel is classed by Lloyd's Register and entered with the Japan P&I Club. It has a clean port-state control record going back to 2007.
Spate of casualties
The casualty continues a dismal recent run for shipping, following a summer dominated by negative headlines from the oil spill resulting from the grounding of the MOL-chartered capesize bulker Wakashio off Mauritius.
This was followed by a major fire on the 300,000-dwt New Shipping VLCC New Diamond (built 2000) in the Indian Ocean, and the sinking of the 8,300-dwt livestock ship Gulf Livestock 1 (built 2002) off Japan, with the loss of 40 crew and nearly 6,000 cattle.
Boxship fires have also seldom been out of the news.
In May, China Cosco Shipping was hit with its second major casualty off South Africa in a week following a fire on one of its boxships.
A cargo fire was reported on the 4,253-teu Cosco Sao Paulo (built 2013), operated by the Chinese shipping giant's Cosco Shipping Lines, off Cape Agulhas.
The incident resulted in the vessel being escorted to a safe anchorage in Table Bay.
In January this year, the 10,000-teu Cosco Pacific (built 2010) had a major cargo fire off Sri Lanka. The company blamed that incident on a misdeclared consignment of lithium batteries.
