A thick black smoke has covered the sky due to a heavy fire that broke out in the engine of an oil tanker near the coasts of Germany.

A seven-member crew has been evacuated and taken ashore after the accident in the engine room of an oil tanker off the coast of Germany, however, efforts continue to put out the blaze and prevent an oil spill on the Baltic Sea coast, according to reports from the German Sea Rescue Association (Deutsche Gesellschaft zur Rettung Schiffbrüchiger – DGzRS), which is responsible for search and rescue services on the North and Baltic Seas, according to offshore energy.

Moreover, German authorities report that a notification about a fire breaking out on a tanker in the Bay of Mecklenburg between Kühlungsborn and Warnemünde in the Baltic Sea was received by radio shortly after 9 a.m. on Friday, October 11, 2024. Black smoke was visible far out to the coast even though the vessel was about 2.5 nautical miles (around 4.5 kilometers) from the coast.

Based on the information available to Havariekommando, Germany’s Central Command for Maritime Emergencies (CCME), the tanker, named Annika, carries approximately 640 tons of oil. The Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) Bremen, operated by the German Society for the Rescue of Shipwrecked People (DGzRS), took extensive measures to save the crew and extinguish the fire.

The Wilma Sikorski sea rescue boat, stationed at the DGzRS station Kühlungsborn, rescued all seven crew members from the 73-meter-long German oil and chemical tanker northeast of Kühlungsborn within an hour of the initial fire notification. Afterward, they were taken to a hospital as a precaution since several had minor injuries. The sea area and the airspace within a 3-nautical mile radius around the stricken vessel were closed.

As the Annika tanker was still burning, the Arkona multi-purpose ship from the Waterways and Shipping Administration at the DGzRS station in Warnemünde, and the Baltic deep-sea salvage tug chartered by the Federal Ministry of Transport embarked on firefighting measures to stop the fire from getting out of control and causing a potential oil spill or explosion.

In the meantime, several firefighting teams were on their way to the ship by helicopter as the emergency command took over the operation. Firefighting teams from Rostock and Kiel on board the Arkona multi-purpose ship that was moored alongside the Annika tanker looked into the possibility of boarding the tanker while additional emergency services, including those from the Lübeck fire department, were en route to the ship.