Breakaway ship runs aground near Juhu beach

Check out the first pictures of the breakaway ship

An unmanned ship, which was being towed from near the Mumbai coast and being taken to Alang from Colombo, that had lost its tow has now drifted closer to the Mumbai coast.

MV Wisdom has now drifted towards the Juhu beach and is just 400 metres from the coastline.

It was being tugged by MV Seabulk Plover for scrap when the tow was lost around 12 nautical miles off the Mumbai coast on Saturday afternoon.

“Due to the rough sea and bad weather, the tow was lost and MV Wisdom started drifting on its own as per the tide. It came very close to the Worli coast and it was feared that it might hit the Bandra Worli Sea Link,” said a senior coast guard officer.

He added, “We received the information from the Mumbai Port Trust and DG Shipping around 1pm and an operation was launched to make sure that the ship did not cause any damage to anything or become part of a mishap. It is good that it is going closer to the coast. If it had drifted in the middle of the sea, it could have hit vessels coming towards the coast and caused heavy damage.”

Coast guard ship ICGS Sankalp has been continuously monitoring the movements of MV Wisdom. A dornier was also launched in the day to keep a track of its movements.

By Saturday evening, the ship MV Wisdom was spotted near the Worli coast, but by late night it had moved towards Bandra and on Sunday afternoon it had reached near the Juhu beach very close to the coast.

The coast guard operation will be kept on and monitoring will be on till the vessel is tugged again. Also, the vessel will be checked thoroughly by coast guard officials before being sent for breaking at Alang in Gujarat.