THIS week has seen copious amounts of incidents involving seafarers, and not a few of them resulted in unfortunate deaths. On January 8, three separate incidents resulted in fatalities, and two of them involved fire.

While en route to the Mediterranean, MT Torc, a product tanker, experienced a boiler explosion that resulted in fatal injuries to her second engineer, who later succumbed to them before medical assistance could reach the ship. MV Stride, a container ship docked in the port of Houston, Texas, caught fire while a bunker barge was alongside. Two of her crew died, and one was severely injured as a result. The third incident, which is of somewhat of a confidential nature, hence, few facts were disclosed, involved an ordinary seaman using a bottle of thinner to reignite the flames of a makeshift metal drum incinerator. The poured thinner purportedly caught flame and burst the bottle, spilling the thinner all over the OS and promptly immolating his whole body. He reportedly died four days later due to severe burns while the ship was still en route to the nearest port.