A Bomb Waiting to Explode

Marine officers who battled fires aboard two gas vessels struck by a drone at Egypt's port of Damietta feared the ships were "a bomb waiting to explode" that could have destroyed the entire port and ripped through the city beyond. The US-owned Energos Winter floating storage and regasification unit and the Greek-owned LNG tanker GasLog Salem, moored side by side, have a combined carrying capacity of 300,000 cubic metres of gas. "The entire port could have exploded, along with parts of the city of Damietta," said one officer, speaking on condition of anonymity.[1]

The officers first heard an explosion aboard the GasLog Salem at around 2:10pm on Wednesday. About ten minutes later, a second explosion hit the Energos Winter. "The second explosion was much larger and a much bigger fire erupted," a second captain said. The crew of the GasLog Salem quickly shut gas tank valves, helping contain the fire, which was extinguished within two hours. The fire on the Energos Winter proved far more difficult and burned until around 8:00pm after the crew had evacuated.[2]

A second captain said he and his colleagues had been told they might not return alive, and to "say our last prayers" before heading out to fight the blaze. Emergency responders surrounded each vessel with four firefighting tugboats, separated them, and towed them away from critical port infrastructure. Damietta is a Nile Delta city of more than 300,000 residents. The officers were thinking about protecting the port and the lives of the people in the city, not the ships.[3]

The strike is the first drone attack on Egyptian territory since the outbreak of the Middle East war. It has not been claimed, and Egypt has not accused any group or country of carrying it out. A security official briefed on the ongoing forensic investigation said it could take a long time for Cairo to release its results. The significance is clear: a drone struck two LNG vessels in a Mediterranean port, and the only thing that prevented a catastrophic explosion was the quick action of crews shutting valves and firefighters towing ships apart. The 300,000 residents of Damietta were one valve failure away from a disaster that would have made the Beirut port explosion look small.[4]