MUMBAI: An Indian container ship sank off the country's western coast on Wednesday after developing a technical fault, but all the crew members had been rescued, officials said.
Navy and Coast Guard officials said there was no threat of an oil spill from the OEL Vision which sank in high seas about 180 km off the coast that has some of India's most popular beaches.
"There was some fuel, but it isn't much to pose any threat. We are keeping aerial vigil," said Coast Guard Commandant KBL Bhatnagar.
The 6,000-tonne ship, owned by Indian firm Shreyas Shipping Logistics, was on its way from Colombo to a port in Gujarat when it developed a technical snag at the weekend.
The crew tried to anchor the ship to prevent it from drifting close to oil rigs in the Mumbai High oil field but it began to list and then sank in the early hours of Wednesday, Bhatnagar said.
"Luckily, it did not collide with any of the rigs or platform," he said. Coast Guard and navy vessels picked up the ship's 28 crew members shortly before it went down. More than 180 people working on the oil rigs in the path of the drifting ship had been evacuated as a precaution, disrupting production for 2-3 hours.
