(Barbados Nation) In excess of 15 000 tonnes of cargo, valued in the millions of dollars and bound for Barbados, are now at the bottom of the Caribbean Sea after a large container vessel sank on Sunday night.
No lives were lost or crew injured when the six-year-old vessel ANGELN, part of the Miami, Florida-based Bernuth Line, sank just after midnight about two miles off Vieux Fort, St Lucia.
Maritime authorities from Barbados and St Lucia launched an immediate investigation, but the cause of the incident may take some time to uncover.
“The ship listed to the starboard side, capsized and then sank,” sales and marketing manager for DaCosta Mannings Shipping, Shone Gibbs, told the DAILY NATION on Monday. “Unfortunately, all cargo was lost, and remains irretrievable. Insurance is in place for something like this.”
According to Gibbs, it was the first time in the more than the 100-year history of DaCosta’s, shipping agents for the Bernuth Line, that one of their ships sank during a transport.
