A Taiwanese container ship en route to Karachi on Friday evening grounded just outside the harbour's navigational channel because of an engine breakdown, port officials said. "Four tug boats have been employed to pull out the ship, which steered away from its primary navigational route following engine failure," the officials said.
The container ship ran aground sometime in the evening about 4 pm near the Manora Island channel because of low tide, said fishermen living nearby. The officials said the ship - YM North was carrying container cargo to Karachi port and it had slipped away from its navigational passage between 5pm and 6pm about 2.5 nautical mile off the harbour.
They said the Karachi Port Trust (KPT) was trying to pull the ship out by midnight with the help of high tides. "Rescue efforts are underway to get the ship back into the sea channel," they said. The ship's captain is Korean, they said, adding that the vessel was 275-meter-long. It is loaded with 1,746 containers, of which 1,553 containers would be unloaded at Karachi port. The ship had last left Singapore harbour, they said.
"It will be docked at Karachi International Container Terminal's (KICT) 26 and 27 berths on the West Wharf," they said, adding that the vessel's overall capacity was 3,860 containers. The vessel's gross registered tonnage (GRT) is 46,697 tons.
The fishermen said the ships grounding at breakwaters outside the harbour's navigational channel had become a matter of routine, recalling that such an incident had occurred about two ro three months ago, when a ship had run aground.