In the immediate vicinity of the Ukrainian border in the Black Sea, off the Romanian port of Sulina, there has been an explosion aboard a cargo vessel, as the German news platform n-tv.de reports.
According to the Romanian news agency Mediafax, citing shipping authorities, all 12 crew members were pulled to safety unharmed. Members of the crew told authorities they suspected that a sea mine may have been the cause of the explosion. Romanian authorities initially had no information on the cause of the accident. Sulina is located just five kilometers as the crow flies from the Ukrainian border. The accident occurred about 16 nautical miles from Sulina.
The ship, flying the flag of Togo, was loaded with cement and was supposed to enter the Ukrainian Bystre Canal of the Danube. Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, Romania’s military has regularly searched for sea mines in the Black Sea and has already successfully defused several.
Image: Luis Alfredo Romero, Cargo Ship Puerto Cortes.jpg, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (image size changed)
